ife had disappeared, returning shortly
with her face crimson, and the foaming vessel in her hand.

"Well, madam, you've had your way, now I'll have mine," said her
husband, and filling a glass, he called his son downstairs. "Here,
Allan," he said, "drain that, or I'll thrash you soundly."

"Father, you forget, I belong to the Band of Hope," said the boy
appealingly.

"Drink it, I say," and the infuriated man seized the child's arm.

"Roland, will you blight your boy's life as you have your own?"
interposed the mother. Down came the cruel hand on wife and child, and,
while a volley of oaths rained from the man's lips, Allan lifted the
glass and drained the contents.

"Now, go to bed, and remember that when your father speaks you are to
obey. I'll make a man of you yet, you young milksop!"

Sobbing bitterly, Allan crept to his bed, and his anguish found vent in
the pitiful question: "What else can I be but a drunkard when my father
makes me drink?"

What, indeed, could be the future of the child, who from that time was
compelled to fetch, and then partake of his brutal father's cup? What
marvel that with early acquired taste for strong drink, he impatiently
cast aside the restraint of a tender mother, and followed with rapid
footsteps his father to a premature dishonoured end!

Another scene, the closing one, and all that is needful for reproof and
warning will have been drawn from the life-history of Roland West.

* * * * *

"He's worse to-day, mum," said the nurse of a workhouse infirmary to a
woman closely veiled, who was bending over a bed upon which lay
stretched the form of an old man. What a face for any woman to gaze
upon, and know that once it had been the joy of her life to mark the
light of intellect and the tenderness of devotion sparkling and kindling
in the eyes that now only turned in their sunken sockets with dim, vague
unrest from side to side.

"Do you know me, Roland?" asked the visitor; but no reply was made, nor
sign of any kind given.

"Bless you, no, mum; he doesn't know me as allus feeds him, and hasn't
for months. He jest lays there and rolls his eyes about, and cries
sometimes like a babby," said the nurse who stood by. "You see, mum,"
she continued, "it's more often like this with them as drinks, when they
can't get at their drops, they jest get lower and lower, and you can't
do nothing for them. My old man went off like this one, and he'd been a
fri