e little room, just before the evening service
commenced; and then the sight he had witnessed of the neat, respectable
neighbour, and his ill-clothed, dirty wife, going up the hill together.
He thought of the strange scene that met his view on his return to his
home after spending the evening hours as usual with a neighbour, smoking
and conversing on the topics of the day, for John prided himself that
his figure had never darkened the doorway of the wretched tavern that
was his wife's continual resort.

"T' lass knows all about t' inside o' t' beastly plaace, and 'at's
enoogh for me," he would say in reply to any invitation from its many
frequenters to join them in their social evenings. He never went nearer
than when compelled. Occasionally he waited at some little distance for
the stumbling figure of his wife, in order to help her along the
solitary path that led to their miserable dwelling. But no such task lay
before him when he left his neighbour's cheerful fireside; neither was
his wife lying in a state of helpless intoxication across the bed; nor
was she even sitting muddled and stupified, waiting his arrival to make
the cottage resound with her oaths, when he should refuse to supply her
with the means for further revelry and drunken debauch. In the usually
empty grate a glowing fire shed its warmth and radiance through the
room; on the table there was a jug of steaming coffee, and a pile of
bread and butter; and, strangest of all, on the well-swept hearth were
his dilapidated slippers warmed and ready, and close beside them his
chair, evidently drawn from its corner in expectation of his arrival.
Half suspicious of some new design against his peace, he looked
dubiously around, and only ventured to say: "Thou'rt home early, lass,
t' neaght?"

"Ay, lad, thou sayest it; and more's t' shame, 'at aw've ever been
aught but hoom ter greeat thee; aw've gotten good oop at yond meetin'
hoose t' neaght, and aw've proomised t' Looard and t' fouks 'at aw'll
gie oop t' alehoose and t' drink; aw've been a bad woife ter thee, and a
weecked mother ter t' childer; but t' Looard in mercy ha' forgi'en me
all my seens; and aw'm 'at happy aw could daance for t' joy. Dost heear
me, lad?" she continued, as her husband stared in dumbfounded fashion at
her.

"Thee may weel stare thee een oot wi' wonner, for aw waalked streeaght
ter t' tap yonder, and thinkin' ter mysen, now t' Looard ha' weshed my
blaack heaart t' least aw could do 'u