“Yes, many a drunkard's wife is clothed in rags, and goes hungry to bed at night, with her hungry children crying for bread about her. She can lie on her cold pile of rags, with the snow sifting down on her, and think that her husband, a sober, honest man once, was made a low, brutal wretch by intemperance; that he drank up all his property, killed himself by strong drink, was buried in a pauper's grave, and left a starving wife and children, to live if they could. The cold of winter freezes her, the want of food makes her faint, and to see her little ones starving about her makes her heart ache, no doubt. I have plenty of money, fine clothes, dainty food, diamonds on my fingers.”
Says she, stretching out her little white hands, and smilin' the bitterest smile I ever see on Cicely's face,—
“But do you not think, that, as I lie on my warm, soft couch at night, my heart is wrung by a keener pang than that drunkard's wife can ever know? I can lie and think that by my means, my wealth, I am making just such homes as that, making just such broken hearts, just such starving children, filling just such paupers' graves,—laying up a long store of curses and judgments, for my boy's inheritance. And I am powerless to do any thing but suffer.”
And she opened the door, and walked right out. And Mr. Post stood and smiled till we got to the bottom of the stairs.
“Good-afternoon, good-afternoon, my clear madam, call again; happy to see you—Good-afternoon.”
Wall, Cicely went right to bed the minute we got home; and she never eat a mite of supper, only drinked a cup of tea, and thanked me so pretty for bringin' it to her.
And there was such a sad and helpless, and sort of a outraged, look in her pretty brown eyes, some as a noble animal might have, who wus at bay with the cruel hunters all round it. And so I told Josiah after I went down-stairs.