or money, in consequence of
neglect, carelessness, or incompetency of clerks or workmen, when he
was away, enjoying himself.

For a long time, Mrs. Uhler's independent spirit struggled against
the humiliating necessity that daily twined its coils closer and
closer around her. More and more clearly did she see, in her
husband's wrong conduct, a reflection of her own wrong deeds in the
beginning. It was hard for her to acknowledge that she had been in
error--even to herself. But conviction lifted before her mind,
daily, its rebuking finger, and she could not shut the vision out.

Neglect of business brought its disastrous consequences. In the end
there was a failure; and yet, to the end, Mr. Uhler excused his
conduct on the ground that he wasn't going to tie himself down like
a galley slave to the oar--wasn't going to stoop to the drudgery he
had employed clerks to perform. This was all his wife could gain
from him in reply to her frequent remonstrances.

Up to this time, Mr. Uhler had resisted the better suggestions
which, in lucid intervals, if we may so call them, were thrown into
her mind. Pride would not let her give to her household duties that
personal care which their rightful performance demanded; the more
particularly, as, in much of her husband's conduct, she plainly saw
rebuke.

At last, poverty, that stern oppressor, drove the Uhlers out from
their pleasant home, and they shrunk away into obscurity, privation,
and want. In the last interview held by Mrs. Uhler with the "strong
minded" friends, whose society had so long thrown its fascinations
around her, and whose views and opinions had so long exercised a
baleful influence over her home, she was urgently advised to abandon
her husband, whom one of the number did not hesitate to denounce in
language so coarse and disgusting, that the latent instincts of the
wife were shocked beyond measure. Her husband was not the brutal,
sensual tyrant this refined lady, in her intemperate zeal,
represented him. None knew the picture to be so false as Mrs. Uhler,
and all that was good and true in her rose up in indignant
rebellion.

To her poor, comfortless home, and neglected children, Mrs. Uhler
returned in a state of mind so different from anything she had
experienced for years, that she half wondered within herself if she
were really the same woman. Scales had fallen suddenly from her
eyes, and she saw every thing around her in new aspects and new
relations.