"I WANT a quarter of a dollar, Jane."

This was addressed by a miserable creature, bloated and disfigured
by intemperance, to a woman, whose thin, pale face, and heart-broken
look, told but too plainly that she was the drunkard's wife.

"Not a quarter of a dollar, John? Surely you will not waste a
quarter of a dollar of my hard earnings, when you know that I can
scarcely get food and decent clothes for the children?"

As the wife said this, she looked up into her husband's face with a
sad appealing expression.

"I must have a quarter, Jane," said the man firmly.

"O, John! remember our little ones. The cold-weather will soon be
here, and I have not yet been able to get them shoes. If you will
not earn any thing yourself, do not waste the little my hard labor
can procure. Will not a sixpence do? Surely that is enough for you
to spend for--"

"Nothing will do but a quarter, Jane, and that I must have, if I
steal it!" was the prompt and somewhat earnest reply.

Mrs. Jarvis laid aside her work mechanically and, rising, went to a
drawer, and from a cup containing a single dollar in small pieces,