The frugal meal passed in silence and restraint. Mrs. Jarvis felt
troubled and oppressed--for the prospect before her seemed to grow
more and more gloomy. All the morning she had suffered from a steady
pain in her breast, and from a lassitude that she could not
overcome. Her pale, thin, care-worn face, told a sad tale of
suffering, privation, confinement, and want of exercise. What was to
become of her children she knew not. Under such feelings of
hopelessness, to have one sitting by her side, who could take much
of her burdens from her, were he but to will it--who could call back
the light to her heart, if only true to his promise, made in earlier
and happier years--soured in some degree her feelings, and obscured
her perceptions. She did not note that some change had passed upon
him; a change that if marked, would have caused her heart to leap in
her bosom.

As soon as Jarvis had risen from the table, he took his hat, and
kissing his youngest child, the only one there who seemed to regard
him, passed quickly from the house. As the door closed after him,
his wife heaved a long sigh, and then rising, mechanically,
proceeded to clear up the table. Of how many crushed affections and
disappointed hopes, did that one deep, tremulous sigh, speak!

Jarvis returned to his work, and applied himself steadily during the
whole afternoon. Whenever a desire for liquor returned upon him, he
quenched it in a copious draught of water, and thus kept himself as
free from temptation as possible. At night he returned, when the
same troubled and uneasy silence pervaded the little family at the
supper-table. The meal was scanty, for Mrs. Jarvis's incessant labor
could procure but a poor supply of food. After the children had been