reluctantly, and biting his lips over this slip of his
tongue.

"Then you've set them a good example, and I can't believe its effect
will be lost," said Esther.

"I sincerely hope it won't," said Fred, very willing to seem a reformer
at heart, "nobody would be gladder than I to see those fellows with
wives as happy as mine seems to be."

"Then why don't you follow it up, Fred, dear, and make sure of your
hopes being realized? You can't imagine how much happier _I_ would be if
I could meet those dear women without feeling that I had to hide the joy
that's so hard to keep to myself."

The conversation continued with considerable strain to Fred's
amiability; but his sophistry was no match for his wife's earnestness,
and he was finally compelled to promise that he would make an appeal to
Crayme, with whom he had a business engagement, on the arrival of
Crayme's boat, the _Excellence_.

Before the whistles of the steamer were next heard, however, Esther
learned something of the sufferings of would-be reformers, and found
cause to wonder who was to endure most that Mrs. Crayme should have a
sober husband; for Fred was alternately cross, moody, abstracted, and
inattentive, and even sullenly remarked at his breakfast-table one
morning that he shouldn't be sorry if the _Excellence_ were to blow up,
and leave Mrs. Crayme to find her happiness in widowhood. But no such
luck befell the lady: the whistle-signals of the _Excellence_ were again
heard in the river, and the nature of Fred's business with the captain
made it unadvisable for Fred to make an excuse for leaving the boat
unvisited.

It _did_ seem to Fred Macdonald as if everything conspired to make his
task as hard as it could possibly be. Crayme was already under the
influence of more liquor than was necessary to his well-being, and the
boat carried as passengers a couple of men, who, though professional
gamblers, Crayme found very jolly company when they were not engaged in
their business calling. Besides, Captain Crayme was running against time
with an opposition boat which had just been put upon the river, and he
appreciated the necessity of having the boat's bar well stocked and
freely opened to whoever along the river was influential in making or
marring the reputation of steamboats. Fred finally got the captain into
his own room, however, and made a freight contract so absent-mindedly
that the sagacious captain gained an immense advantage over him; then he
act