ing of which had rendered him unworthy to live under the same roof with her, and betook himself to the regular pursuits of business with great earnestness. He soon found out what arduous up-hill work it was to bring again under his control affairs which had been so long and shamefully neglected. He felt several times disposed to throw it all over in disgust; for, alas! he had lost almost every vestige of the patience and accuracy of business-habits. He succeeded, with great difficulty, in appeasing the more clamorous of his creditors, and, in a word, he once more stood a chance of clearing his way before him. His poor wife, however, was brought several times to the very verge of the grave, and was destined for months to the monotonous hours of a bed of sickness. For nearly a month, she experienced the most affectionate attentions from her husband, that were consistent with a due regard to the business of his office. She felt revived and cheered by the prospect of his renewed attachment, and trusted in its permanency. But, alas! her husband was not made of such materials as warranted her expectations; he was little else than a compound of weakness, vanity, ignorance, and ill-temper; and for such a one, the sober loveliness and attractiveness of domestic life had no charms. He had no sooner got his affairs a little into train, and succeeded in reviving the confidence of some of his principal clients, than he began to relax his efforts. One by one his old associates drew around him, and re-entangled him in the toils of dissipation. The first time that poor ill-fated Mrs T- came down into the parlour to dinner, after a three-months' absence in her sickchamber, she was doomed to dine alone-disappointed of the promised presence of her husband to welcome her-for the same low, contemptible coxcomb, formerly introduced to the reader as one of her husband's most intimate friends, had called in the course of the morning, and succeeded in enticing him away to a tavern-dinner with a "set of good ones," who were afterwards to adjourn to one of the minor theatres. In vain was the little fillet of veal, ordered by her husband himself, placed on the

table before his deserted wife; she could not taste it, nor had strength enough to carve a piece for the nurse! Mr T had had the grace to send her a note of apology, alleging that his absence was occasioned by "an

affair of business!" This cruel and perfidious conduct, however, met with its due punishment. One of his principal creditors-his tailorhappened to be swallowing a hasty dinner in a box adjoining the one in which T-and his boisterous associates were dining, and accidentally cast eyes on his debtor T. He saw and heard enough to fill him with fury; for he heard his own name mentioned by the half-inebriated debtor, as one of the "servedout snips" whom he intended to "do" -an annunciation which was received by the gentlemanly young men who were dining with him, with cries of "Bravo, T- -, do! Dee, I-and I-and I-have done it before this!"

do,"

The next morning he was arrested for a debt of L.110, at the suit of the very "snip" whom he intended, in his own witty way, to and carried off to a spunging-house in Chancery Lane. There he lay for two days without his wife's knowing any thing of the true state of things. He could get no one to stand bail for him, till one of his wife's insulted friends, and his own brother-in-law, came forward reluctantly for that purpose, in order to calm her dreadful agitation, which had flung her again on a sick-bed. Her husband wrote her a most penitential letter from the spunging-house, imploring her forgiveness of his misconduct, and promising amendment. Again she believed him, and welcomed him home with enthusiastic demonstrations of fondness. He himself could not refrain from weeping; he sobbed and cried like a child; for his feelings-what with the most pungent sense of disgrace, and remorse, and conscious unworthiness of the sweet creature, whose affections no misconduct of his seemed capable of alienating- were quite overcome. Three of his largest creditors commenced actions against him, and nothing seemed capable of arresting the ruin now impending over him. Where was he to find the means of satisfying their claims? He was in

despair, and had sullenly and stupidly come to a resolution to let things take their course, when, as if Providence had determined to afford him one chance more of retrieving his circumstances, the sudden death of his father put him in possession of L.300 in ready cash; and this sum, added to L.200 advanced him by two of his wife's friends, who could not resist her agonizing supplications, once more set matters to rights.

Passing over an interval of four years, spent with disgrace to himself, and anguish to his wife, similar to that described above, they must now be presented to the reader occupying, alas! a lowered station of society. They had been compelled to relinquish an airy, respectable, and commodious residence, for a small, bad house, in a worse neighbourhood. His business had dwindled down to what was insufficient to occupy the time of one solitary clerk, whom he was scarcely able to pay regularly -and the more respectable of his friends had deserted him in disgust. The most rigorous-nay almost starving-economy on the part of his wife, barely sufficed to make both ends meet. She abridged herself of almost every domestic comfort, of all those little elegancies which a well-bred woman loves to keep about her, and did so without a murmur. The little income arising from the L.5000, her settlement-money, might surely of itself, with only ordinary prudence on his part, have enabled them to maintain their ground with something like respectability, especially if he had attended to what remained of his business. But, alas! alas! T's temper had by this time been thoroughly and permanently soured. He hated his good wife-his business -his family-himself-every thing except liquor and low company! His features bore testimony to the sort of life he led-swelled, bloated, and his eyes languid and bloodshot. Mrs T saw less of him than ever; for not far from his house there was a small tavern, frequented by not the most respectable sort of people; and there was T to be found, evening after evening, smoking and drinking himself into a state of stu

pid insensibility, till he would return home redolent of the insuffer able stench and fumes of tobaccosmoke and brandy-and-water! In the daytime he was often to be found for hours together at an adjoining billiard-room, where he sometimes lost sums of money, which his poor wife was obliged to make up for by parting, one by one, with her little trinkets and jewellery! What could have infatuated him to pursue such a line of conduct? it may be asked. Why, as if of set purpose, to ruin the peace of mind of one of the fondest and most amiable wives that ever man was blessed with? A vulgar but forcible expression may explain all,

it was "the nature of the beast." He had no intellectual pleasures-no taste for the quiet enjoyments of home; and had, above all, in his wife, too sweet, confiding, and unresisting a creature! Had she proved a termagant, the aspect of things might have been very different; she might have bullied him into something like a sense of propriety. But here, however, he had it all his own waya poor creature, who allowed him to break her heart without remonstrance or reproach; for the first she dared not the second she could not! It would have melted a heart of stone to see her! She was wasted to a skeleton, and in such a weak, declining state of health, that she could scarcely stir out of doors. Her appetite was almost entirely gone; her spirits all fled long ago! Now, shall I tell the reader one immediate cause of such physical exhaustion? I will, and truly. Mr T had still a tolerable share of business, but he could scarcely be brought to give more than two hours' attendance in his office a-day, and sometimes not even that. He therefore imprudently left almost every thing to the management of his clerk, a worthy young man, but wholly incompetent to such a charge. He had extorted from even his idle and unworthy master, frequent acknowledgments of his obligations for the punctuality with which he transacted all that was intrusted to him, and, in particular, for the neatness, accuracy, and celerity with which he copied drafts of pleadings, leases, agreements, &c. His master often hiccuped to him his astonishment

at the rapidity with which he "turned them out of hand." Little did the unworthy fellow imagine that in saying all this, he was uttering not his clerk's, but his WIFE's praises! For she it was, poor creature! who, having taken the pains to learn a lawyer's hand, engrossing, &c. from the clerk, actually sate up almost regularly till two or three o'clock in the morning, plodding occasionally through papers and parchments making long and laborious abstracts -engrossing settlements, indentures, &c. and copying pleadings, till her wearied eyes, and her little hands, could no longer perform their office! I could at this moment lay my hands on a certain legal instrument of tiresome prolixity, which was engross ed, every word, by Mrs T! This was the way in which his wife spent the hours of midnight, to enable him to squander away his time and money in the unworthy, the infamous manner above related!

Was it wonderful that her health and spirits were wholly borne down by the pressure of so many accumu lated ills? Had not her husband's eye been dulled, and his perceptions deadened, by the perpetual stupors of intoxication, he might have discerned the hectic flush-the coming fever the blood-spitting, which foretell-consumption! But that was too much to be expected. As for the evenings that part of his day was invariably spent at his favourite tavern, sotting hour after hour among its lowest frequenters; and as for her night-cough and blood-spitting, he was lulled by liquor into too profound a repose to be roused by the sounds which were, in effect, his martyred wife's death-knell ! If, during the daytime, he was, in a manner, forced to notice her languorher drooping spirits-the only notice, the only sympathy it called forth on his part, was a cold and careless enquiry, why she did not call in a medical man! I shall conclude this portion of my narrative, with barely reciting four instances of that conduct on the part of Mrs T's husband, which at last succeeded in breaking her heart; and which, with many other similar vices, were communicated to me with tears of tortured sensibility.

I. Half-drunk, half-sober, he one evening introduced to her, at tea, a female "friend," whose questionable appearance might, at first sight, have justified his wife's refusal to receive her. Her conversation soon disclosed her real character; and the insulted wife abruptly retired from the room that was polluted by the presence of the infamous creature, whom he avowed to be his mistress! He sprung after her to the door, for the purpose of dragging her back; but her sudden paleness, and the faint tones in which she whispered

"Don't stop me-don't-or I shall die!" so shocked him, that he allowed her to retire, and immediately dismissed the wretch, whom he could have brought thither for no other purpose than to insult his wife! Poor creature! did a portion of her midnight earnings go towards the support of the wretch who was kept by her husband? Was not such a consideration sufficient to stab her to the heart?

II. Having occasion, late one evening, to rummage among her husband's office-papers, in search of something which was to be engrossed that night, her eye happened to light on a document, with a pencil superscription" Copy, case for counsel, concerning Mrs T's marriage settlement." A very excusable curiosity prompted her to peruse what proved to be a series of queries submitted to counsel, on the following points, among others: What present powers he had under her marriage-settlement;-whether her own interest in it could be legally made over to another, with her consent, during her life-time, and if so, how; —whether or not he could part with the reversion, provided she did not exercise her power of willing it away elsewhere ?-From all this, was it possible for her not to see how heartlessly he was calculating on the best method of obtaining possession of the remnant of her fortune?

"Oh, cruel-cruel-cruel George! So impatient!-Could you not wait a month or two? I'm sure I shall not keep you out of it long! I always intended to leave it you, and I won't let this alter my mind, though it is cruel of you!" sobbed Mrs T-, till her heart seemed break

ing. At that moment she heard her husband's loud obstreperous knock at the door, and hastily crumpling up the paper into the drawer of the desk from which she had taken it, she put out the candle, and leaving her midnight labours, flew up stairs to bed-to a wretched and sleepless one!

III. Mrs T's child, which was about three years and a half old, was suddenly seized with convulsive fits, as she was one evening undressing it for bed. Fit after fit followed in such rapid succession, that the medical man who was summoned in, prepared her to expect the worst. The distraction of her feelings may be easier conceived than described, as she held on her knee the little creature on whose life were centred all the proud and fond feelings of a mother's love, deepened into exclusive intensity-for it seemed the only object on earth to return her love; -as she held it, I say, but with great difficulty, for its tiny limbs were struggling and plunging about in a dreadful manner. And then the frightful rolling of the eyes! They were endeavouring to pour a teaspoonful of Dalby's carminative, or some such medicine, through the closed teeth, when the room door was suddenly thrown open, and in reeled Mr T--, more than halfseas over with liquor, and in a merrier mood than usual, for he had been successful at billiards! He had entered unobserved through the streetdoor, which had been left ajar by the distracted servant girl, and hearing a bustle in the room, he had entered, for the purpose of seeing what was

the matter.

"Wh-wh-what is the matter, good fo-olks, eh ?" he stammered, reeling towards where Mrs Twas sitting, almost fainting with terror at seeing the frightful contortions of her infant's countenance. She saw him not, for her eyes were fixed in agony on the features of her suffering babe.

"What the-the-the d-1 is the matter with all of you here, eh ?" he enquired, chucking the servant girl under the chin, who, much agitated, and shedding tears, had approached to beg he would leave the room. He tried to kiss her, and in the presence

of the medical man-who sternly rebuked him for his monstrous conduct.

"D-n you, sir-who the d-l are you?" he said, putting his arms a-kimbo-" I will know what's the matter!" He came near-he saw all !

the leaden-hand, quivering features, the limbs now rigid, and struggling violently, the starting eye-balls. Why, for God's sake, what's the matter, eh ?" he stammered, almost inaudibly, while the colour fled from his face, and the perspiration started upon his forehead. He strove to steady himself, but that was impossible. He had drunk too deeply.

"What are you doing to the child -what-what?" he again enquired, in a feeble and faltering voice, interrupted by a hiccough. No notice whatever was taken of him by——, who did not seem to see or hear him,

"Jane, tell me," addressing his wife, "has the child had"-hiccough

" an-an-accident?" The infant that moment gave a sudden and final plunge; and Mrs T's faint shriek, and the servant girl's wringing of the hands, announced that all was over! The little thing lay dead in the arms of its mother.

"Sir, your child is dead," said the apothecary, somewhat sternly, shaking Mr T-by the arm-for he stood gazing on the scene with a sullen, vacant stare, scarcely able to steady himself.

"Wh-wh-at! D-e-a-d!" he muttered.

"Oh, George, my darling is-is dead!" groaned the afflicted mother, for the first time looking at and addressing her husband. The word seemed to sober him in an instant

"What!-Dead! And I DRUNK !"

The medical man, who stoodby, told me he could never forget the scenes of that evening! When Mrs T-discovered, by his manner, his disgraceful condition, she was so utterly overcome with her feelings of mingled grief, shame, and horror, that she fell into violent hysterics, which lasted almost all night long. As for T-, he seemed palsied all the next day. He sate alone during the whole of the next morning, in the room where the dead infant lay, gazing upon it with emotions which may be imagined, but not described !

IV. Almost the only piece of ornamental furniture, her last remaining means of amusement and consolation, was her piano. She played with great taste and feeling, and many a time contrived to make sweet sounds pour an oblivious charm over her sorrows and sufferings, by wandering over the airs which she had loved in happier days. Thus was she engaged one afternoon with one of Dr Arne's exquisite compositions, the air beginning, "Blow, blow, thou bitter wind.' She made several attempts to accompany the music with her voice-for she had a very sweet one, and could sing-but, whenever she attempted, the words seemed to choke her. There was a sorrowful appropriateness in them, a touching echo of her own feelings, which dissolved her very spirit within her. Her only child had died, as the reader was informed, about six months before, and her husband had resumed his ill courses, becoming more and more stern and sullen in his demeanour-more unreasonable in his requirements. The words of the air, as may be easily conceived, were painfully appropriate to her situation, and she could not help shedding tears. At that moment her husband entered the room, with his hat on, and stood for some moments before the fire in silence.

"Mrs T-!" said he, as soon as she had concluded the last stanza. "Well, George?" said she, in a mild tone.

“I—I must sell that piano, ma'am -I must!" said he.

"What!" exclaimed his wife, in a low whisper, turning round on the music-stool, and looking him in the face with an air of sorrowful surprise. Oh, you cannot be in earnest, George!"

"'Pon my life, ma'am, but I am I can't afford you superfluities while we can hardly afford the means of keeping body and soul together." "George-dear George-do forgive me, but I-I-I cannot part with my poor piano!" said she.

Why not, ma'am, when I say you

MUST ?"

"Oh, because it was the gift of my poor mother!" she replied, bursting into tears.

"Can't help that, ma'am-not I. It must go. I hate to hear its cursed

noise in the house-it makes me melancholy-it does, ma'am-you're always playing such gloomy music," replied her husband, in a severe and less decisive tone.

"Well, well! if that's all, I'll play any thing you like-only tell me, dear George! what shall I play for you, now?" said she, rising from the music-stool, and approaching him. "Play a farewell to the piano, for it must go, and it shall!"

Dear, kind George! let me keep it a little longer," said she, looking him beseechingly in the face-" a little-a little longer"

"Well, ma'am, sit down and play away till I come in again, any thing you like."

He left the room; and in less than half an hour-oh, hardness of heart unheard of!-returned with a stranger, who proved to be a furniture broker, come to value the instrument! That evening it was sold to him for L.15; and it was carried away the first thing in the morning, before his wife came down stairs! What will be supposed the cause of this cruelty? It was to furnish Mr T

with money to pay a bill of the infamous creature more than once alluded to, and who had obtained a complete ascendency over him!

It was a long-continued course of such treatment as this, that called me upon the scene, in a professional capacity merely, at first; till the mournful countenance of my patient inspired me with feelings of concern and friendly sympathy, which eventually led to an entire confidence. She came to me in the unostentatious character of a morning patient, in a hackney coach, with an elderly female friend. She looked quite the lady, though her dress was of but an ordinary quality, yet exquisitely neat and clean; and she had still a very interesting and somewhat pretty face, though long-continued sorrow had made sad havoc with her features! These visits, at intervals of a week, she paid me, and compelled me to take my fee of one guinea, on each occasion-though I would have given two to be enabled to decline it without hurting her delicacy. Though her general health had suffered severely, still I thought that matters had not gone quite so far as to destroy all hopes of reco