dinner. We had to play a part before the footman. Oh! What
a dreadful meal that was! I seemed to be feeding on ashes, and drinking
wormwood. I felt as if every morsel would choke me. We spoke to one
another in measured terms. Would the miserable farce of a dinner never
be over? It came to an end at last. And then she came to me trembling
and penitent, and, laying her head on my shoulder, wept till tears would
fall no longer. She was sober then; she had taken nothing but water at
dinner. She unburdened her heart to me (so I thought), and confessed
all. She told me how she and her brother had been brought up, as
children, in habits of self-indulgence, especially in having free access
to the wine and spirits. She told me that she and her unworthy brother
had been all in all to one another, that gambling and drink had brought
him into difficulties, and that she had allowed him to run up accounts
in her name. She declared that he really loved and valued me, and that
the thought of hurrying on our marriage for any selfish object, was
quite a recent idea, suggested by distress under pecuniary
embarrassment. She asserted passionately that she truly loved me; she
implored me to overlook the past, and promised, with solemn appeal to
Heaven, that she would renounce the drink from that hour, and give me no
more uneasiness. Ay, she promised; a drunkard's promise! Lighter than
the lightest gossamer; brittle as the ice of an April morning. I
believed her: did she believe herself? I fear not. But the worst was
to come, the shadows were deepening, the storm was gathering. A year
had passed over our wedded life, when a little girl was given to us.
Every cord of my heart that had been untwined or slackened of late wound
itself fast round that blessed little one."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

MR. TANKARDEW'S STORY FINISHED.

"All was joy for a time. We called our little one Mary; it was a name I
loved. I had not lived as a total abstainer; though, as I told you
once, my mother, whom I can only recollect as a widow, had banished all
intoxicants from our table. But I was young when she died, and I
became, and continued for many years a moderate drinker. But now when
our little girl was born, I had swept the house clear of all alcoholic
drinks; we hadn't a drop in the place from cellar to attics, so I
thought. And my wife agreed with me that our little one should never
know the taste of the strong drink. We had not many