Her husband followed, as she led the way to an adjoining room, where two or three bright-eyed children were playing in the happiest mood.
"For their sakes, if not for mine, Jonas, sign the pledge again," she said, while her voice trembled, and then became choked, as she leaned her head upon his shoulder.
"You have conquered! I will sign!" he whispered in her ear.
Eagerly she lifted her head, arid looked into his face with a glance of wild delight.
"O, how happy this poor heart will again be!" she ejaculated, clasping her hands together, and looking upwards with a joyous smile.
In a few minutes, a pledge of total abstinence from all kinds of intoxicating drinks, was written out and signed. While her husband was engaged in doing this, Mrs. Marshall stood looking down upon each letter as it was formed by his pen, eager to see his name subscribed. When that was finally done; she leaned forward on the table at which he wrote, swayed to and fro for a moment or two, and then sank down upon the floor, lost to all consciousness of external things.
From that hour to this, Jonas Marshall has been as true to his second pledge, even in thought, as the needle to the pole. So dreadful seems the idea of its violation, that the bare recollection of his former dereliction, makes him tremble.
"It was a severe remedy," he says, sometimes, in regard to his broken legs; "and proved eminently successful. But for that, I should have been utterly lost."