er neighbours, proving how advantageous to
health and pocket her own and her husband's Temperance principles had
been, they had both tried to secure adherents to the good cause. They
had met with little success, and in some instances, notably that of Mrs.
Ryan, had earned for themselves continual abuse and scorn.

Years passed and Donovan Ryan went down to a drunkard's grave unwept and
unhonoured. With rapid footsteps his wife followed him, leaving to the
children as her legacy, the craving for intoxicants which had been
engendered in their infancy and ministered to with such assiduity in
following years.

Is the story improbable, impossible? No, for thousands of lives cursed
with the disease of drink attest its truth.

There was a ray of hope seen; there was help offered in earlier years;
but some hand, perhaps that of the wife and mother, quenched the hope,
and thrust aside the offered help, and forced those for whose salvation
it was responsible into paths of ever-deepening darkness and rayless
despair.

[Illustration]

HOW JARVIS WAS SAVED.

"IT'S quite true, ma'am, I've been a drinker; but, indeed, I've given it
up, and if you'll only give me a chance of redeeming my character, you
shan't ever regret it."

The lady who was thus addressed looked up from the letter she had been
reading, somewhat doubtfully, at the speaker who was a woman past her
early youth, red-faced and coarse-featured, but with honest gray eyes
and a set mouth that bore witness to the purpose indicated by her words.

"But you lost your last situation by giving way to drink," said Mrs.
Reston.

"Yes, ma'am, I did. I had got into the habit, and nothing was kept
locked up, and I couldn't help taking it when the longing came on me."

The woman was singularly frank the lady thought, and after further
conversation, it was decided that she should enter Mrs. Reston's service
as cook.

"You will find no temptation to drink here," said Mrs. Reston. "I keep
all intoxicants under lock and key, and the housemaid does not take
anything of the kind. So you see, if you really wish to reform you have
a good chance, and, indeed, if I did not think you were sincere in your
wish to turn over a new leaf, I would not engage you."

The woman's voice broke a little as she thanked her future mistress and
left the house.

"Really, Edmund, I was so struck by her intense desire to begin a new
life, and as in every other respect her character w