We would not enlarge upon the scene; a painful one at all times, when
man forgets his high prerogative, and drowns his reason in the tankard:
but, in a Roger Acton's case, lately so wise, temperate, and patient,
peculiarly distressing. Its chief features were these. Grace tasted
nothing, but mournfully looked on: once only she attempted to
expostulate, but was met--not with fierce oaths, nor coarse chidings,
nor even with idiotic drivelling--oh no! worse than that she felt: he
replied to her with the maudlin drunken promise, "If she'd only be a
good girl, and let him bide, he'd give her a big Church-bible, bound in
solid gold--that 'ud make the book o' some real value, Grace." Poor
broken-hearted daughter--she rushed to her closet in a torrent of tears.

As for Mary Acton, she was miraculously meek and dumb; all the scold was
quelled within her; the word "blood" was the Petruchio that tamed that
shrew; she could see a plenty of those crimson spots, which might

"The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green, one red,"

dancing in the sun-beams, dotted on the cottage walls, sprinkled as
unholy water, over that foul crock. Would not the money be a curse to
them any how, say nothing of the danger? If things went on as they
began, Mary might indeed have cause for fear: actually, she could not
a-bear to look upon the crock; she quite dreaded it, as if it had
contained a "bottled devil." So there she sat ever so long--silent,
thoughtful, and any thing but comfortable.

What became of Roger until next day at noon, neither he nor I can tell:
true, his carcase lay upon the floor, and the two-gallon jar was empty.
But, for the real man, who could answer to the name of Roger Acton, the