o notice, and probably had not heard her child's words.
By and bye her tears ceased, and she staggered to her feet, saying: "Oh,
God! that I should have come to this, while he--"

What did her grief, her broken words mean? The children stood aghast;
and, at that juncture, heavy footsteps were heard on the stairs, and
directly the husband and father entered the room; his clear brow,
fearless eye, and manly bearing all gone, and in their stead, darkness,
sullenness, and feebleness.

"What's these?" he asked, for the gaudy cards had been thrown to the
very entrance of the room, and in another moment his foot would have
rested upon them.

Mattie sprang forward and placed them, without a word, in his hands.
Susan crossed the room, and came to her husband's side.

"Who's been putting the brats up to this?" he asked, half angrily,
turning to her.

"I don't know," she answered; "but, oh, George, look at the signature,
and think what that man used to be, and how we couldn't find a name bad
enough for him; and now he's respectable and well-to-do, and me and
you's sunk lower than ever he did. Oh, dear! oh, dear!" and again
Susan's sobs shook the room.

"Timothy Morris, as I live!" exclaimed George Dixon, dropping the cards
in sheer amazement, while upon his mind there rushed a score of
memories, some joyous and bright; others, and these of later days, sad
and sin-shadowed.

"Don't carry on so, Susan," he said; "it makes me feel bad, for I've
been as much in the wrong as you."

[Illustration: "Look at the signature, and think what that man used to
be."--_Page 76._]

"Oh, George, I wouldn't care if I'd only cursed and ruined myself; but
look there!" and she pointed to the five children, who, half
terrified at the scene, were huddling together in the corner.

"Come here, Mattie," she said; "go to your father, child, and ask him if
he remembers the golden-haired, bonnie baby who sat on his knee and
pulled his hair when he came home, nigh upon eight years ago, and told
me that the drunken sot, whose name is on your pledge-card, had turned
teetotal. Ask him if you look like that baby at all. Oh, you needn't
turn away, George, for you know there's but one answer. And what's made
the difference between that happy home, and this beastly place? and
what's made me and you more like brutes than the loving couple we were,
eh, George?"

With streaming eyes Susan stood before her husband, waiting for the
answer to her questions.