r! suddenly stopped the supplies of mutton-chops; and
swore that his daughter, and the dauber, her husband, should have no
more of his wares. At first they embraced tenderly, and, kissing and
crying over their little infant, vowed to heaven that they would do
without: but in the course of the evening Griskinissa grew peckish,
and poor Simon pawned his best coat.

When this habit of pawning is discovered, it appears to the poor a
kind of Eldorado. Gambouge and his wife were so delighted, that they,
in course of a month, made away with her gold chain, her great
warming-pan, his best crimson plush inexpressibles, two wigs, a
washhand basin and ewer, fire-irons, window-curtains, crockery, and
arm-chairs. Griskinissa said, smiling, that she had found a second
father in _her uncle_,--a base pun, which showed that her mind was
corrupted, and that she was no longer the tender, simple Griskinissa
of other days.

I am sorry to say that she had taken to drinking; she swallowed the
warming-pan in the course of three days, and fuddled herself one whole
evening with the crimson plush breeches.

Drinking is the devil--the father, that is to say, of all vices.
Griskinissa's face and her mind grew ugly together; her good humour
changed to bilious, bitter discontent; her pretty, fond epithets, to
foul abuse and swearing; her tender blue eyes grew watery and blear,
and the peach-colour on her cheeks fled from its old habitation, and
crowded up into her nose, where, with a number of pimples, it stuck
fast. Add to this a dirty, draggle-tailed chintz; long, matted hair,
wandering into her eyes, and over her lean shoulders, which were once
so snowy, and you have the picture of drunkenness and Mrs. Simon
Gambouge.

Poor Simon, who had been a gay, lively fellow enough in the days of
his better fortune, was completely cast down by his present ill luck,
and cowed by the ferocity of his wife. From morning till night the
neighbours could hear this woman's tongue, and understand her doings;
bellows went skimming across the room, chairs were flumped down on the
floor, and poor Gambouge's oil and varnish pots went clattering
through the windows, or down the stairs. The baby roared all day; and
Simon sat pale and idle in a corner, taking a small sup at the
brandy-bottle, when Mrs. Gambouge was out of the way.

One day, as he sat disconsolately at his easel, furbishing up a
picture of his wife, in the character of Peace, which he had commenced
a