pon it, fragile reed as it was.

CHAPTER VII.

"COME home early, dear," said Mrs. Wilkinson, resting her hand upon her
husband, and looking into his face with a loving smile. "The time seems
so long when you are away!"

"Does it?" returned Wilkinson, and he kissed his wife. Yet, did not the
tenderness of tone with which he spoke, nor the act of love which
accompanied it, hide from the quick perception of Mary the fact that
her husband's thoughts were elsewhere.

"Oh, yes," she replied. "I count the hours when you are absent. You'll
be home early to tea?"

"Certainly I will. There now, let your heart be at rest."

And Wilkinson retired. This was after dinner, on the day that succeeded
the opening of our story.

As in the morning, he found it the most natural thing in the world to
call in at a certain drinking house and get his accustomed glass of
brandy. As he entered the door of the bar-room, a man named Carlton
stepped forward to meet him, with extended hand. He was an old
acquaintance, with whom Wilkinson had often passed an agreeable
hour,--one of your bar-room loungers, known as good fellows, who, while
they exhibit no apparent means of support, generally have money to
spend, and plenty of time on their hands.

"Glad to see you, Wilkinson; 'pon my soul! Where have you kept yourself
for this month of Sundays?"

Such was the familiar greeting of Carlton.

"And it does one's eyes good to look upon your pleasant face," returned
Wilkinson, as he grasped the other's hand. "Where have you kept
yourself?"

"Oh, I'm always on hand," said Carlton, gayly. "It's you who are shut
up, and hid away from the pure air and bright sunshine in a gloomy
store, delving like a mole in the dark. The fact is, old fellow! you
are killing yourself. Turning gray, as I live!"

And he touched, with his fingers, the locks of Wilkinson, in which a
few gray lines were visible.

"Bad! bad!" he went on, shaking his head. "And you are growing as thin
as a lath. When did you ride out?"

"Oh, not for two months past. I've been too closely occupied with
business."

"Business!" there was a slight air of contempt in Carlton's voice and
manner. "I hate to hear this everlasting cant, if I must so call it,
about business; as if there were nothing else in the world to think or
care about. Men bury themselves between four brick walls, and toil from
morning until night, like prison-slaves; and if you talk to them about
an hour's recr