sitively. "So take a friend's advice,
and never go out after sundown, except in company with your wife."

There was a change from gravity to mock seriousness in the voice of
Ellis as he closed this sentence. Wilkinson compressed his lips and
shook his head.

"Can't always be tied to my wife's apron-string. Oh, no! haven't come
to that."

"With such a wife, and your temperament, it is the best place for you,"
said Ellis, laughing.

"May be it is; but, for all that, I like good company too well to spend
all my time with her."

"Isn't she good company?"

"Oh, yes; but, then, variety is the very spice of life, you know."

"True enough. Well, we'll not quarrel about the matter. Come! let's go
and take a drink; I'm as dry as a fish."

"I don't care if I do," was the instinctive reply of Wilkinson, who
took up his hat as he spoke.

The two men left the store, and were, a little while after, taking a
lunch at a public house, and chatting over their brandy and water.

At the usual dinner hour, Wilkinson returned home. He did not fully
understand the expression of his wife's face, as she looked at him on
his entrance: it was a look of anxious inquiry. She sat with Ella upon
her lap: the child was sleeping.

"How is our little pet?" he asked, as he bent over, first kissing his
wife, and then touching his lips lightly to the babe's forehead.

"She's been in a heavy sleep for most of the time since morning,"
replied Mrs. Wilkinson, turning her face aside, so that her husband
could not see its changed expression.

Mr. Wilkinson's habitual use of brandy had long been a source of
trouble to his wife. In reviewing the painful incidents of the previous
evening, a hope had sprung up in her heart that the effect would be to
awaken his mind to a sense of his danger, cause him to reflect, and
lead to a change of habit. Alas! how like a fairy frost-work fabric
melted this hope away, as the strong breath of her husband fell upon
her face. She turned away and sighed--sighed in her spirit, but not
audibly; for, even in her pain and disappointment, active love prompted
to concealment, lest the shadow that came over her should repel the one
she so earnestly sought to win from his path of danger.

Ah, who can tell the effort it cost that true-hearted wife to call up
the smile with which, scarcely a moment afterwards, she looked into her
husband's face!

"It is no worse, if no better," was her sustaining thought; and she
leaned u