communing with himself.

"I don't know"--he went on--"but, may be, I do take a little too
much sometimes. I rather think I must have been drinking too freely
when I came home last week: by the way Cara talked, and by the way
she acted for two or three days afterwards. There may be danger.
Perhaps there is. My head isn't very strong; and it doesn't take
much to affect me. I wish Cara wouldn't speak to me as she does
sometimes. I can't bear it. Twice within the last month, she has
fairly driven me off to spend my evening in a tavern, when I would
much rather have been at home. Ah, me! It's a great mistake. And
Cara may find it out, some day, to her sorrow. I like a glass of
brandy, now and then; but I'm not quite so far gone that I must have
it whether or no. I'm foolish, I will own, to mind her little,
pettish, fretful humours. I ought to be more of a man than I am.
But, I didn't make myself, and can't help feeling annoyed, and
sometimes angry, when she is unkind and unreasonable. Going off to a
tavern don't mend the matter, I'll admit; but, when I leave the
house, alone, after nightfall, and in a bad humour, it is the most
natural thing in the world for me to seek the pleasant company of
some of my old friends--and I generally know where to find them."

Such was the state of mind in which Ellis returned home.

A word or two will give the reader a better idea of the relation
which Henry Ellis and his wife bore to each other and society. They
had been married about six years, and had three children, the oldest
a boy, and the other two girls. Ellis kept a retail dry-goods store,
in a small way. His capital was limited, and his annual profits,
therefore, but light. The consequence was, that, in all his domestic