ouse, as a home to some of her little
ones "when the worst should come to the worst" with them. She struggled
through some unhappy months, and then they moved again and came to
Littleton, and there the same tale was told over again, with even more
bitter emphasis, and then something happened.

It was something very terrible. Their child most tenderly cared for,
the dearest one of all to his father's-heart,--a sickly little lad of
seven,--was injured severely, fatally injured, in one of his fits of
drunkenness. It was quite by accident. John would have given his own
life gladly to save the little moaning creature; but the child never
recovered. He died with his little wasted cheek laid close against his
father's, and his arms clasped round his neck. There was not much said
about it. No one but Stephen Grattan and his wife, who were very kind
to them in their troubles, ever knew that any accident had happened to
the child.

Things went better with them for a while. John got work, and took his
family to a little log-house a mile or two from the village; and Alice
began to hope that the better days so much longed for were coming now.
But then came sickness, and then work failed, and--there was no help for
it--the husband must go in search of it, that he might get bread for his
starving family. So, with heavy hearts, they bade one another good-bye.
The wife stayed with her children in the little log-house on the hill,
while the husband went away alone.

He was very wretched. The thirst for strong drink, which he had begun
to think was allayed, came upon him in all its strength, in the double
misery of parting with his family, and going away knowing that he left
his wife with more fear than hope in her heart with regard to him. How
could she hope that he would resist temptation,--he who had yielded to
it so many times? Physically and morally he felt himself unfit for the
battle that lay before him; and there was no one to help him--no one who
cared to help him--he said bitterly to himself, as one after another
passed by him without word or look.

It did not help him to know that the fault was altogether his own. It
was all the worse to bear for that. He had had his chance in life, and
lost it. What was the use of struggling for what could never be
regained? If it were not for the wife and babies at home! And yet
might it not be better even for them if they never were to see him more?

He had come down fr