"Keep to your pledge, then, John, and all will be well. While you
were a sober man, I preferred you to any journeyman in my shop. Keep
sober, and you shall never want a day's work while I am in
business."

The poor man was now shown his place in the shop, and once again he
resumed his work, though under a far different impulse than had, for
years, nerved him to action.

Two hours brought his regular dinner-time, when Jarvis, who began to
feel the want of food, returned home, with new and strange feelings
about his heart. One impulse was to tell his wife what he had done,
and what he was doing. But then he remembered how often he had
mocked her new springing hopes--how often he had promised amendment,
and once even joined a temperance society, only to relapse into a
lower and more degraded condition.

"No, no," he said to himself, after debating the question in his
mind, as he walked towards home; "I will not tell her now. I will
first present some fruit of my repentance. I will give such an
assurance as will create confidence and hope."

Mrs. Jarvis did not raise her eyes to the face of her husband, as he
entered. The sight of that once loved countenance, distorted and
disfigured, ever made her heart sick when she looked upon it. Jarvis
seated himself quietly in a chair, and held out his hands for his
youngest child, not over two years old, who had no consciousness of
his father's degradation. In a moment the happy little creature was
on his knee. But the other children showed no inclination to
approach.