ave way in spite of myself, and exposed me to the
imputations of fierceness, cruelty, and impatience. I attended carefully
to his wants and amusements, but not, I own, with the same devoted
fondness as before, because I could not feel it; besides, I had now
another claimant on my time and care--my ailing infant, for whose sake I
frequently braved and suffered the reproaches and complaints of his
unreasonably exacting father.

But Arthur is not naturally a peevish or irritable man; so far from it,
that there was something almost ludicrous in the incongruity of this
adventitious fretfulness and nervous irritability, rather calculated to
excite laughter than anger, if it were not for the intensely painful
considerations attendant upon those symptoms of a disordered frame, and
his temper gradually improved as his bodily health was restored, which
was much sooner than would have been the case but for my strenuous
exertions; for there was still one thing about him that I did not give up
in despair, and one effort for his preservation that I would not remit.
His appetite for the stimulus of wine had increased upon him, as I had
too well foreseen. It was now something more to him than an accessory to
social enjoyment: it was an important source of enjoyment in itself. In
this time of weakness and depression he would have made it his medicine
and support, his comforter, his recreation, and his friend, and thereby
sunk deeper and deeper, and bound himself down for ever in the bathos
whereinto he had fallen. But I determined this should never be, as long
as I had any influence left; and though I could not prevent him from
taking more than was good for him, still, by incessant perseverance, by
kindness, and firmness, and vigilance, by coaxing, and daring, and
determination, I succeeded in preserving him from absolute bondage to
that detestable propensity, so insidious in its advances, so inexorable
in its tyranny, so disastrous in its effects.

And here I must not forget that I am not a little indebted to his friend
Mr. Hargrave. About that time he frequently called at Grassdale, and
often dined with us, on which occasions I fear Arthur would willingly
have cast prudence and decorum to the winds, and made 'a night of it,' as
often as his friend would have consented to join him in that exalted
pastime; and if the latter had chosen to comply, he might, in a night or
two, have ruined the labour of weeks, and overthrown with a tou