with him, and talk to him about gardening; but he very soon began to
drop the subject of plants, and delight only in the praises of malt.

Bella saw this change in her husband with the utmost grief and
consternation. As yet, not having sufficient experience to attend the
wall-fruit herself, she was frequently obliged to fetch him home to his
work, when she generally found him in a state of intoxication. It would
often have been better had he kept out of the garden than gone into it;
for his head was generally so muddled with beer, when he went to work on
his trees, that his pruning-knife committed the greatest depredations,
cutting away those branches which ought to have been left, and leaving
those that were useless.

Hence it was not to be wondered at, that the garden fell off in the
quality and quantity of its fruit, and the more Jonathan perceived the
decay, the more he gave himself up to drinking. As his garden gradually
failed in procuring him the means of getting strong liquor, he first
parted with his furniture, and then with his linen and clothes.

Bella, in the mean time, did what little she could to keep things
together; but all to no purpose. One day, when she was gone to market
with some roots she had reared herself, he went and sold his working
utensils, and immediately went and spent all with Guzzle. Judge what
must be the situation of poor Bella on her return! It was indeed a
heart-breaking consideration, to be thus reduced to poverty by the folly
of her husband; but yet she loved him, and equally felt for him as for
herself, but still more for an infant, as yet but six months old, and
which received its nourishment from her breast.

In the evening Jonathan came home drunk, and, swearing at his wife,
asked her for something to eat. Bella handed him a knife, and put before
him a large basket covered with her apron; Jonathan, in a pet, pulled
away the apron; but his astonishment was inexpressible, when he beheld
nothing in the basket but his own child fast asleep. "Eat that," said
Bella, "for I have nothing else to give you. It is your own child, and
if you do not devour it, famine and misery will in a short time."

Jonathan seemed almost petrified into a stone at these words, and for
some time remained speechless, with his eyes fixed on his little
sleeping son. At last recovering himself, quite sobered, his heart eased
itself in tears and lamentations. He rose and embraced his wife, asked
her pardon