, and after looking at it, and reading the
inscription--

"Well, Art," she said, "you never broke your oath--that's one comfort."

"No," he replied; "nor I'll never break this; if I do," he added
fervently, and impetuously, "may God mark me out for misery and
misfortune!"

"Whisht, dear," she replied; "don't give way to these curses--they sarve
no purpose, Art. But I'm so happy this day!"

"An' is my father never to be drunk any more, mammy?" asked the little
ones, joyfully; "an he'll never be angry wid you, nor bate you any
more?"

"Whisht, darlins," she exclaimed; "don't be spakin' about that; sure
your poor father never beat me, only when he didn't know what he was
doin'. Never mention it again, one of you."

"Ah, Margaret," said Art, now thoroughly awakened, "what recompense can
I ever make you, for the treatment I gave you? Oh, how can I think of
it, or look back upon it?"

His voice almost failed him, as he uttered the last words; but his
affectionate wife stooped and kissing away the tears from his cheeks,
said--

"Don't, Art dear; sure this now is not a time to cry;" and yet her own
tears were flowing;--"isn't our own love come back to us? won't we now
have peace? won't we get industrious, and be respected again?"

"Ah, Margaret darling," he replied, "your love never left you; so don't
put yourself in; but as for me--oh, what have I done? and what have I
brought you to?"

"Well, now, thanks be to the Almighty, all's right. Here's something for
you to ait; you must want it."

"But," he replied, "did these poor crathurs get anything? bekase if they
didn't, I'll taste nothin' till they do."

"They did indeed," said Margaret; and all the little ones came joyfully
about him, to assure him that they had been fed, and were not hungry.

The first feeling Art now experienced on going abroad was shame--a
deep and overwhelming sense of shame; shame at the meanness of his past
conduct--shame at his miserable and unsightly appearance--shame at all
he had done, and at all he had left undone. What course now, however,
was he to adopt? Being no longer stupified and besotted by liquor, into
a state partly apathetic, partly drunken, and wholly shameless, he could
not bear the notion of resuming his habits of mendicancy. The decent but
not the empty and senseless, pride of his family was now reawakened in
him, and he felt, besides, that labor and occupation were absolutely
necessary to enable him to bear up agains