swollen, his hair thin and grizzled, and his
dress neglected and dirty; but he was the chosen husband of her youth;
and, with Hannah, to love once was to love always.

Jackson had a son, an excellent lad, possessing all his father's good
qualities, and none of his bad ones. He and young George had been at
school together, and a friendship had arisen between them that promised to
be enduring; the more so, that Esther Hammond and Henry Jackson were
lovers--a secret, the discovery of which was at first very ill received by
Hannah. That her Esther should marry the son of Jackson whom she hated,
was not to be thought of.

"There's little reason to fear that Harry will take after his father,
mother," George would say. "Besides, you'd think it hard if any body made
me suffer for father; and, for my part, I think it's enough to cure any
body of a love of liquor, to see how it disguises people who would be so
different if they could leave it alone."

It was some time before this kind of argument prevailed with Hannah; but
it had its effect at length, sustained as it was by the genuine merits of
the candidate, by his evident abhorrence of his father's vice, and by his
dutiful attentions to his mother. So, by-and-by, he became a welcome
visitor to Mrs. Hammond and her daughter; and, all things concurring, it
was tacitly understood among them, that some day or other, when they were
both old enough, and when Henry should be in a situation to maintain a
family, Esther was to be his wife.

This arrangement--now that she was satisfied of Harry Jackson's good
character--shed a gleam of comfort on Hannah's dark path; for her path lay
dark before her now. The host of the King's Arms was never happy out of
Hammond's company; the truth being, that the unfortunate man had grown
really fond of George. Hannah's frowns and coldness could not keep him
away; and if she, by persuasion or stratagem, contrived to detain her
husband at home, Jackson invariably came in search of him. Then, besides
all the other griefs and discomforts attending such a state of things, the
business of the house began to decline. The respectable townspeople did
not like to frequent an inn where the host was always intoxicated; and, to
many who had known them in happier days, George Hammond's bloated face,
and Hannah's pinched features were not pleasant to behold. If matters went
on at this rate, pecuniary embarrassments were not unlikely to be added to
her other affli