oor children! If the husband and father changes, from a guardian
and provider for his family, into their brutal assailant, to whom
can they look for protection? Oh, it is sad! sad!"

"It is dreadful! dreadful!" said Mr. Green.--

"It is only a few years ago," he added, "since Brooks began to show
that he was drinking too freely. He always liked his glass, but he
knew how to control himself, and never drowned his reason in his
cups. Of late, however, he seems to have lost all control over
himself. I never saw a man abandon himself so suddenly."

"All effects of this kind can be traced back to very small
beginnings," remarked Mrs. Green.

"Yes. A man does not become a drunkard in a day. The habit is one of
very gradual formation."

"But when once formed," said Mrs. Green, "hardly any power seems
strong enough to break it. It clings to a man as if it were a part
of himself."

"And we might almost say that it was a part of himself," replied Mr.
Green: "for whatever we do from a confirmed habit, fixes in the mind
an inclination thereto, that carries us away as a vessel is borne
upon the current of a river."

"How careful, then, should every one be, not to put himself in the
way of forming so dangerous a habit. Well do I remember when Mr.
Brooks was married. A more promising young man could not be
found--nor one with a kinder heart. The last evil I feared for him
and his gentle wife was that of drunkenness. Alas! that this
calamity should have fallen upon their household.--What evil, short
of crime, is greater than this?"

"It is so hopeless," remarked Mr. Green. "I have talked with Brooks
a good many times, but it has done no good. He promises amendment,
but does not keep his promise a day."

"Touch not, taste not, handle not. This is the only safe rule," said
Mrs. Green.

"Yes, I believe it," returned her husband.--"The man who never
drinks is in no danger of becoming a drunkard."

For some time, Mr. and Mrs. Green continued to converse about the
sad incident which had just transpired in the family of their
neighbor, while their little son, upon whose mind the fearful sight
he had witnessed was still painfully vivid, sat and listened to all
they were saying, with a clear comprehension of the meaning of the
whole.

After awhile the subject was dropped. There had been a silence of
some minutes, when the attention of Mr. Green was again called to
certain unpleasant bodily sensations, and he said--

"I declar