universal maxim. True, heads were gravely
shaken, and Mr. A. regretted to Mr. B. that so promising a young man
seemed about to ruin himself. But one was "_no relation_," of Edward's,
and the other "felt a delicacy in speaking on such a subject," and
therefore, according to a very ancient precedent, they "passed by on the
other side." Yet it was at Mr. A.'s sideboard, always sparkling with the
choicest wine, that he had felt the first excitement of extra stimulus;
it was at Mr. B.'s house that the convivial club began to hold their
meetings, which, after a time, found a more appropriate place in a
public hotel. It is thus that the sober, the regular, and the discreet,
whose constitution saves them from liabilities to excess, will accompany
the ardent and excitable to the very verge of danger, and then wonder at
their want of self-control.

It was a cold winter evening, and the wind whistled drearily around the
closed shutters of the parlor in which Augusta was sitting. Every thing
around her bore the marks of elegance and comfort.

Splendid books and engravings lay about in every direction. Vases of
rare and costly flowers exhaled perfume, and magnificent mirrors
multiplied every object. All spoke of luxury and repose, save the
anxious and sad countenance of its mistress.

It was late, and she had watched anxiously for her husband for many long
hours. She drew out her gold and diamond repeater, and looked at it. It
was long past midnight. She sighed as she remembered the pleasant
evenings they had passed together, as her eye fell on the books they had
read together, and on her piano and harp, now silent, and thought of all
he had said and looked in those days when each was all to the other.

She was aroused from this melancholy revery by a loud knocking at the
street door. She hastened to open it, but started back at the sight it
disclosed--her husband borne by four men.

"Dead! is he dead?" she screamed, in agony.

"No, ma'am," said one of the men, "but he might as well be dead as in
such a fix as this."

The whole truth, in all its degradation, flashed on the mind of Augusta.
Without a question or comment, she motioned to the sofa in the parlor,
and her husband was laid there. She locked the street door, and when the
last retreating footstep had died away, she turned to the sofa, and
stood gazing in fixed and almost stupefied silence on the face of her
senseless husband.

At once she realized the whole of her