nal tippler, but a confirmed and habitual
drunkard. His natural disposition was gay and social, and he began by
taking an occasional glass with his friends--more for sociability than
for any love of the beverage. His wife often admonished him of the
danger of tampering with the deadly vice of intemperance, but he only
laughed at what he termed her idle fears. Well had it been for them both
had the fears of his wife proved groundless! It is needless for me to
follow him in his downward path, till we find him reduced to the level
of the common drunkard. Some three months previous to the time when our
story opens his employers were forced to dismiss him, as they could no
longer employ him with any degree of safety to their business. It was
fortunate for Mrs. Harland that the dwelling they occupied belonged to
her in her own right--it had been given her by her father at the period
of her marriage--so that notwithstanding the dissipated habits of the
husband and father they still possessed a home, although many of the
comforts of former days had disappeared before the blighting influence
of the demon of intemperance. After being dismissed by his employers Mr.
Harland seemed to lose all respect for himself, as well as for his wife
and children, and, but for the unceasing toil of the patient mother, his
children might have often asked for bread in vain.

So low had he now fallen that almost every evening found him in some low
haunt of drunkenness and dissipation; and often upon returning to his
home he would assail his gentle wife with harsh and unfeeling language.
Many there were who advised Mrs. Harland to return with her children to
her parents, who were in affluent circumstances, but she still cherished
the hope that he would yet reform. "I pray daily for my erring husband,"
she would often say, "and I feel an assurance that, sooner or later, my
prayers will be answered; and I cannot feel it my duty to forsake him."
But on this evening, as she sits thus alone, her mind is filled with
thoughts of the past, which she cannot help contrasting with the
miserable present, till her reverie is interrupted by the sound of
approaching footsteps, which she soon recognizes as those of her
husband; she is much surprised--for it is long, very long, since he has
returned to his home at so early an hour--and, as he enters the room,
her surprise increases when she perceives that he is perfectly sober. As
he met her wondering gaze a kind exp