"_Oh, d----n the hymn!_" roared my father; "_on with you, Frank, and
my benison light on the composer of it! Don't stop to favor us with
his name, and pass over the filthy doggerel!_"

I proceeded under orders accordingly.

"'Remember, James, you are now sixty-one; repent, and, even in the
eleventh hour, you may be plucked like a brand from the fire. Avoid
swearing, mortify the flesh--that is, don't take a third tumbler after
dinner--'"

My father could not stand it longer. "_Oh, may Cromwell's curse light
upon her! I wonder how many glasses of brandy-and-water she swallows
at evening exercise, as she calls it, over a chapter of Timothy?_"

"'I would not recall the past, but for the purpose of wholesome
admonition. The year before you married, and gave up the godless life
of soldiering, can you forget that I found you, at one in the morning
in Bridget Donovan's room? Your reason was, that you had got the
colic; if you had, why not come to my chamber, where you knew there
was laudanum and lavender?

Poor Constance could not stand the fresh allegation; and, while my
mother looked very grave, we laughed, as Scrub says, "consumedly." My
father muttered something about "cursed nonsense!" but I am inclined
to think that aunt Catharine's colic charge was not without some
foundation.

"'I have now, James, discharged my duty: may my humble attempts to
arouse you to a sense of the danger of standing on the brink of the