rightness; none of his old love.
It wasn't so much that he brought his mother no welcome help now; it was
hard to miss it, but she could battle on without. It wasn't that
crippled Sally's cheek grew paler because she was forced to do without
the little comforts supplied so long by a brother's thoughtful love,
though it was harder still to miss these. No, but it was that mother
and daughter both saw, too plainly, that Jim was going down-hill, and
that too with quickening steps. They saw that he was getting the slave
of the drink, and they feared that there was worse behind; and, of
course, there was: for when did ever the drink-fiend get an immortal
being into his grasp without bringing a companion demon along with him?
And now, this very day, Jim was reported to them as being missing from
"The Firs," and dark suspicions and terrible rumours were afloat, and
John Gubbins' name and the young master's name were mixed up with them.
Mother and daughter sat there together by the dying embers, and
shuddered closer to one another at each moaning of the blast.

"Oh, mother! I'm heartbroke," at last burst out from the poor girl's
lips: "to think of our Jim, so kind, so good, 'ticed away by that
miserable drink, and gone nobody knows where."

"Hush! Hush! Child, ye mustn't fret; I've faith to believe as the Lord
'll not forsake us: He'll bring our Jim back again: He'll hear a
mother's prayer: He'll--"

But here a sudden sound of uneven footsteps made the poor widow start to
her feet, and Sally to cry out. The next moment the door was rudely
shaken, and then Jim staggered into the room, haggard, blear-eyed,
muttering to himself savagely. The sight of his mother and sister
seemed partially to sober him, for the spirit within him bowed
instinctively before the beauty of holiness, which neither poverty nor
terror could obliterate from the face of those whom he used to love so
dearly. But the spell was soon broken.

"I say," he exclaimed, "what's to do here? I want my supper; I haven't
scarce tasted to-day, and nobody cares for me no more nor a dog. I say,
mother, stir yourself, and get me my supper." He flung himself into a
chair, with an oath, as he almost lost his balance.

Oh! Misery! Misery! Every word was a separate stab, but Mrs Forbes
restrained herself.

"Jim, dear," she said, soothingly, "we've nothing in the house for
supper: we didn't expect you: we hoped you'd gone back to your
master's."

"Ah! The