"Yes, and we got it all; and there is that poor little woman left without a home."
"She can go to her father's," said Mr. Van Horn. "The old man is rich enough. However, it is none of our business, that I know of. But I tell you it will be your business—and a bad business, too—if you don't let that brandy alone."
But Joe could not let the brandy alone. It had already become necessary to him. Every morning he awoke with a throbbing head and a heavy heart, loathing the day's work before him, loathing himself for submitting to it, feeling himself disgraced in his own eyes and condemned before God. For, however much he might wish it, Joe had never been able to make himself an unbeliever. He might laugh as he pleased at Parson Williams's fire-and-brimstone stories (as he called them) and Dr. Woodman's pious speeches; but in his heart of hearts he knew the future they spoke of was an awful reality, to which every day brought him nearer. Van Horn, while he professed great respect for religious observances, and attended public worship once every Sunday, really succeeded in putting the matter entirely out of his thoughts and acting as if there was no God.
Joe, though he never went to church, and professed himself an utter skeptic, lived in constant dread of that unseen Being whose existence he all-but denied, and whose interference in the affairs of men he treated as a ridiculous fable. Every morning he awoke with a load upon his mind and conscience which made him wretched and morose; and it was not till he had taken his glass of spirits—conveniently disguised with aromatics, and going under the name of somebody's "bitters"—that he was at all easy or comfortable.
Agnes herself was almost afraid to speak to him till he had taken his morning dram. She was, as we know, neither very wise nor very clear-sighted; but even she began to be seriously uneasy, as she watched the growth of her husband's evil habit, and perceived that he was falling into the snare that he had been so long setting for others. She even ventured to speak to him about the matter, but was met with such a torrent of abuse and reproach that she never ventured to repeat the experiment.
"If I ever am a drunkard, it is you who will have made me so," were Joe's concluding words. "You would not let me alone till you dragged me into this business; and now you may take the consequences."
Her infant, who was really a beautiful boy, had waked up something of the mother in her heart. Madge had never been a favourite with her mother. She knew that she had not done her duty by the child, whose helpless condition was a perpetual reproach; and she disliked her accordingly. It annoyed her when people asked for Madge; and she would never allow her to be seen, if she could help it. While little Herbert was produced for admiration on every occasion, and all the money his mother could procure was lavished upon his dress and equipage, poor Madge seldom stirred from her room on the third floor, except when kind-hearted Mary carried her down into the back veranda, for a little air, while her mother was out shopping or visiting.
But Madge had found a friend in Fanny Cutler, who lived next door and took a warm interest in the poor, lonely little sufferer, from the first day that she made her acquaintance over the back fence. The Cutlers were by far the richest and most fashionable people in the neighbourhood, and Agnes did not care to offend them: so Fanny was allowed free access to the nursery, as Madge's room continued to be called.
Fanny was a kind-hearted, sensible girl, who had been well brought up by a painstaking mother. She understood all sorts of needlework, plain and ornamental; and she taught Madge the use of needles and knitting-pins, with which the poor child beguiled many a weary hour. Fanny had lately become interested in a sewing-school established by the directresses of the "Home;" and Madge was never weary of hearing of the sayings and doings of the children.
"How I wish I could do something for the poor little things!" said she, one day. "I would not so much mind being sick, if I could only do any thing to help other people."