his
marriage, Henry Foster received from the father of his wife the
title-deeds of a snug little place containing thirty acres, which was
well stocked for a small farmer. He had, himself, laid by a few hundred
dollars. Thus he had a fair start in the world, and a most comfortable
assurance of happiness and prosperity. For several years every thing
went on pleasantly. The farm was a very garden spot, and had increased
from thirty to sixty acres by the purchase of contiguous lands. Then a
change became apparent. Foster took more interest than formerly in what
was going on in the village near by. He attended the various political
meetings held at the "Travellers' Rest," and was a prominent man on
training and election days. After a while, his wife began to look on
these days with a troubled feeling, for they generally sent him home in
a sad plight; and it took nearly a week for him to get settled down
again to his work. Thus the declension began, and its progress was too
sadly apparent to the eyes of Mrs. Foster, even before others, less
interested than herself, observed it. At the end of ten years from the
happy wedding day, the farm, now more like a wilderness than a
beautiful garden, was seized and sold for debt. There were no friends
to step in and go Foster's security, and thus save his property from
sacrifice. The father of his wife was dead, and his own friends, even
if they had not lost confidence in him, were unable to render any
assistance.

The rented farm upon which Foster went with his family, after being
sold out, was cultivated with no more industry than his own had been of
late years. The man had lost all ambition, and was yielding himself a
slave to the all-degrading appetite for drink. At first, his wife
opposed a gentle remonstrance; but he became impatient and angry at a
word, and she shrank back into herself, choosing rather to bear
silently the ills of poverty and degradation, which she saw were
rapidly approaching, than to run the risk of having unkindness, from
one so tenderly loved, added thereto.

Affliction came with trouble. Death took from the mother's arms, in a
single year, three children. The loss of one was accompanied by a most
painful, yet deeply warning circumstance. The father came home from the
village one evening, after having taken a larger quantity of liquor
than usual. While the mother was preparing supper, he took the babe
that lay fretting in the cradle, and hushed its frettin