gs in his arms.
While holding it, overcome with what he had been drinking, he fell
asleep, and the infant rolled upon the floor, striking its head first.
It awoke and screamed for a minute or two, and then sank into a heavy
slumber, and did not awake until the next morning. Then it was so sick,
that a physician had to be called. In a week it died of brain fever,
occasioned, the doctor said, by the fall.

For a whole month not a drop of liquor passed the lips of the rebuked
and penitent father. Even in that short time the desert places of home
began to put forth leaves, and to give promise of sweet buds and
blossoms; and the grieving mother felt that out of this great sorrow
was to come forth joy. Alas! that even a hope so full of sadness should
be doomed to disappointment. In a moment of temptation her husband
fell, and fell into a lower deep. Then, with more rapid steps the
downward road was traversed. Five more years of sorrow sufficed to do
the work of suffering and degradation. There was another seizure for
debt, and the remnant of stock, with nearly all their furniture, was
taken and sold. The rented farm had to be given up; with this, the hope
of gaining even sufficient food for her little ones died in the
wretched mother's mind.

From a farmer on his own account, Foster now became a mere farm
labourer; with wages sufficient, however, to have made things
comfortable at home under the management of his frugal, industrious
wife, if all he earned had been brought home to her. But at least one
third, and finally one half, and sometimes more, went to swell the gain
of the tavern-keeper. Had it not been that a cow and a few chickens
were left to them at the last seizure of their things, pinching hunger
would have entered the comfortless home where the mother hid herself
with her children.

At last Foster became so good for nothing, that he could not obtain
employment as a farm hand anywhere in the neighbourhood, and was
obliged to go off to a distance to get work. This, to him, was not felt
to be a very great trial, for it removed him from the sight of his
half-fed, half-clothed children, and dejected, suffering wife; and he
could, therefore spend with more freedom, and fewer touches, of
compunction, the greater portion of his earnings in gratifying the
inordinate cravings of his vitiated appetite.

Thus, in general, stood affairs at the opening of our story. Let us now
take a nearer and more particular view. Let u