Mrs. Reilly and the children are well and join me in kind remembrance.
Very respectfully,
W. H. Reilly.
Joe is the young man who was sentenced for ninety-nine years on circumstantial evidence, and whose story is in this book.
CHAPTER L.
CONCLUSION.
One morning a little lad was observed by his mother to be making great efforts to stretch his chubby limbs to such an extent as to place his feet in every one of his father's tracks.
"What are you trying to do, Sonny? Come into the house quick, or you'll catch cold," called the anxious mother.
"No, no, Mama; I don't want to; I want to follow papa. I'm trying to walk in his footsteps," replied the innocent child.
Does this cause the smoking, drinking, swearing, card-playing, Godless parents to halt and reflect? God knows; we hope so. Does this fill the mother of cherished, idolized little ones with remorse of conscience? Does it occasion her to take a retrospective view of the time when, during courtship days, she was warned and advised of the indiscreet marriage she was about to make, because of her sweetheart's well-known dissolute propensities? Yet all those warnings and pleadings were in vain.