"I won't hear a word now! You're very aggravating, young man--very! He
has disgraced the family; I have put him where he is seven times; he
shall rot were he is! He never shall disgrace the family again. Think of
Sir Sunderland Swiggs, and then think of him, and see what a pretty
level the family has come to! That's the place for him, I have told him
a dozen times how I wished him gone. The quicker he is out of the way,
the better for the name of the family."

The young man waits the end of this colloquy with a smile on his
countenance. "I have no doubt I can work your son's reform--perhaps make
him an honor to the family--"

"He honor the family!" she interrupts, twitches the shawl about her
shoulders, and permits herself to get into a state of general
excitement. "I should like to see one who has disgraced the family as
much as he has think of honoring it--"

"Through kindness and forbearance, Madam, a great deal may be done," the
young man replies.

"Now, you are very provoking, young man--very. Let other people alone;
go your way home, and study your Bible." And with this the old lady
calls Rebecca, the decrepit slave who opened the door, and directs her
to show the young man out. "There now!" she says testily, turning to the
marked page of her Milton.

The young man contemplates her for a few moments, but, having no
alternative, leaves reluctantly.

On reaching the stoop he encounters the tall, handsome figure of a man,
whose face is radiant with smiles, and his features ornamented with
neatly-combed Saxon hair and beard, and who taps the old negress under
the chin playfully, as she says, "Missus will be right glad to see you,
Mr. Snivel--that she will." And he bustles his way laughing into the
presence of the old lady, as if he had news of great importance for
her.

CHAPTER IV.

A FEW REFLECTIONS ON THE CURE OF VICE.

Disappointed, and not a little chagrined, at the failure of his mission,
the young man muses over the next best course to pursue. He has the
inebriate's welfare at heart; he knows there is no state of degradation
so low that the victim cannot, under proper care, be reclaimed from it;
and he feels duty calling loudly to him not to stand trembling on the
brink, but to enter the abode of the victim, and struggle to make clean
the polluted. Vice, he says to himself, is not entailed in the heart;
and if you would modify and correct the feelings inclined to evil, you
must first feed th