but, as week after week rolled by, and the reeling form still staggered past me, my heart grew faint and sick; for the hand which had never been raised save to bless us, now dealt the cruel blow; and the children who had been wont to wait for his coming, and to climb his knee, now cowered when they heard his unsteady footsteps. Each day I hoped against hope, for some change for the better, but it came not.

"One day a thought occurred to me by which I might perchance keep the demon at bay; I would watch the moment at which this craving thirst took possession of my husband. I would give him a substitute in the shape of strong hot chocolate, of which he was inordinately fond; I denied myself every comfort to procure it. I prepared it exactly to his taste—it was ready to the minute that the tempting fiend was wont to whisper in his ear. I was first upon the ground; I forestalled the demon. The sated appetite heeded not his Judas entreaties. My husband smiled on me again, he called me his saviour, his preserver; he again entered the shop of his employer; it was near the house, so it was easy for me to run over with the tempting beverage; I watched him night and day; I anticipated his every wish; my husband was again clothed, and in his right mind; we both learned our dependence on a stronger arm than each other's. Riches came with industry, our last days were our best days.

"And now, my dear child," and the old lady smiled

through her tears, "there is music to my ears, even in those rushing waters, for he who sleeps beneath them fills no drunkard's grave. What matters it by what longer or shorter road we travel, so that heaven be gained at last ?"

CHAPTER LII.

"DID I not tell you that old age was beautiful?” exclaimed Gertrude, to Rose, as they sought the privacy of their own apartments. "The world talks of 'great deeds' (ambition-nurtured though they be), yet who chronicles these beautiful unobtrusive acts of feminine heroism beneath hundreds of roof-trees in our land? too common to be noted, save by the recording angel! Now I understand the meaning of Solomon's words, 'Blessed is the man who hath a virtuous wife, for the number of his days shall be doubled.'

"Confess you are better, ma petite," and Gertrude kissed Rose's pale forehead; "nothing better helps us to bear our own troubles than to learn the struggles of other suffering hearts, and how many unwritten tragedies are locked up in memory's cabinet, pride only yielding up the keys to inexorable death!

"Sometimes, Rose, when I am mercilessly at war with human nature, I appease myself by jotting down the good deeds of every day's observation; and it has been a tonic to my fainting hopes to have seen the poor beggar divide his last crust with a still poorer

one who had none; to see the sinewy arm of youth opportunely offered in the crowded streets to timorous, feeble, and obscure old age; to see the hurried man of business stop in the precious forenoon hours, to hunt up the whereabouts of some stray little weeping child; or to see the poor servant-girl bestow half her weekly earnings in charity. These things restore my faith in my kind, and keep the balance even, till some horribly selfish wretch comes along and again kicks the scales!

"And now Charley must needs be waking up there -see him! looking just as seraphic as if he never meant to be a little sinner! The tinting of a sea-shell could not be more delicate than that cheek; see the faultless outline of his profile against the pillow; look at his dimpled arms and fat little calves; and that little plump cushion of a foot. Was there ever any thing so seducing? I wish that child belonged to me.

"See here, Rose, look at those ladies pacing up and down the long hall, armed for conquest to the teeth. What an insatiable appetite for admiration they must needs have, to make such an elaborate toilet in the dog-days! Nothing astonishes me like the patient endurance of these fashionists at the watering-places; prisoning themselves within doors lest the damp air should uncurl a ringlet; wearing gloves with the thermometer at ninety in the shade; soliciting wasp-waists in the very face of consumption. They are what I call

'the working people;' for your mechanic has the liberty of cooling himself in his shirt-sleeves, and your sempstress, though Nature may have furnished her no hips, does not perspire in interminable piles of skirts. Rose, imagine the old age of such women—no resource but the looking-glass, and that at last casting melancholy reflections in their faces. Not that vanity is confined to the female sex-(Come in, John, you are just in time). I am about to give you an exemplification of the remark I have just hazarded, in the history of Theodore Vanilla.

"River House was full of summer boarders when I first saw him there; nursery-maids and children ad infinitum; ladies in profusion, whose husbands and brothers went and returned morning and evening to their business in the city.

"Of course the ladies were left to themselves in the middle of the day, and some of the most mischievous verified the truth of the old primer-adage; that 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' Theodore was their unconscious butt, and they made the most of him.

"Every evening they assembled on the piazza when the cars came in, and hoped,' with anxious faces, that Mr. Vanilla had not concluded to re

main over night in the city.' The self-satisfied smile with which he would step up on the piazza rub his hands, and his