s they had mingled the poison. Once stimulated,
he called for more and yet more, till these wretches had the pleasure of
seeing him who had so long stood firm, reeling from the shop, to mar at
once all that was pleasant and peaceful at home. When my husband did not
return at supper-time, I felt rather anxious, but thought he might be
delayed, as he sometimes is; so I put his supper to the fire and sat
down to my knitting-work, while one of the boys read to me from his
Sabbath-school book.

We were thus employed when my deluded husband entered. O the agony of
that moment! Had he been brought to me a corpse, I could not have been
more shocked. Had those wicked men that thus seduced my husband entered
my house and done the same things that they caused him to do, they might
have been indicted for the outrage. In the morning Robert had come to
himself; but he saw in the broken furniture, in the distrustful looks of
the children, in the swollen eyes and distressed countenance of his
wife, more than he cared to know. There was a mixture of remorse and
obstinacy in his looks, and when he left me for the morning, instead of
his usual "Good-morning, Mary," he shut the door roughly after him and
hurried away.

When evening came again, Robert returned to the shop, and asked for a
glass of rum. He wanted something to stifle the keen reproaches of
conscience. The dram-seller knew my husband, knew of his reform, that
from being a nuisance to the town, he had become an orderly and
respectable citizen; and now that he had been seduced from the right
way, instead of denying him the cause of all our former misery--instead
of a little friendly advice--with his _usual courteous smile_, he put
the fatal glass into his hand.

For a time my poor Robert continued in a very bad way. He mingled again
with his profane and wicked associates; he was ashamed to see his
minister, and took no notice of him when he passed; hung down his head
when he met any of his temperance friends, and seemed to be fast
returning to his former miserable habits.

But he was not thus to become the dupe of wicked and designing men. His
wife's prayers and tears were not thus to be of no avail. On a sudden he
awoke from his delusion. He had lived a whole year without rum; and
though exposed to all weathers, he knew his health had been better, his
head clearer, his nerves firmer, his purse heavier, and his home
happier. He called one evening to see the President of the