"See!" The wife threw back the sheet.
"O!" was the only sound that escaped the doctor's lips. It was a prolonged sound, and uttered in a tone of exquisite distress. The white and ghastly face of death was before him.
"It is your work!" murmured the unhappy woman, half beside herself in her affliction.
"Madam! do not say that!" ejaculated the physician. "Do not say that!"
"It is the truth! Did he not charge it upon you with his dying breath?"
"I did all for the best, madam! all for the best! It was an error in his case. But I meant him no harm."
"You put poison to his lips, and destroyed him. You have made his wife a widow and his children orphans!"
"Madam!—"The doctor knit his brows and spoke in a stern voice. But, ere he had uttered a word more, the stricken-hearted woman gave a wild scream and fell upon the floor. Nature had been tried beyond the point of endurance, and reason was saved at the expense of physical prostration.
A few weeks later, and Doctor L—, in driving past the former residence of Mr. Hobart, saw furniture cars at the door. The family were removing. Death had taken the husband and father, and the poor widow was going forth with her little ones from the old and pleasant home, to gather them around her in a smaller and poorer place. His feelings at the moment none need envy.
How many, like Mr. Hobart, have died through the insane prescription of brandy as a preventive to cholera! and how many more have fallen back into old habits, and become hopeless drunkards! Brandy is not good for health at any time; how much less so, when the very air we breathe is filled with a subtle poison, awaiting the least disturbance in the human economy to affect it with disease.