"Why," soliloquized he, "should not those bells also proclaim the
advent of a new resolution? I have not made one for several weeks,
and it's about time. I'll swear off."

He did it, and at that moment a new light seemed to be shed upon his
pathway; his wife came out of the house with a tin lantern. He
rushed frantically to meet her. She saw the new and holy purpose in
his eye. She recognised it readily-she had seen it before. They
embraced and wept. Then stretching the wreck of what had once been a
manly form to its full length, he raised his eyes to heaven and one
hand as near there as he could get it, and there in the pale
moonlight, with only his wondering wife, and the angels, and a cow
or two, for witnesses, he swore he would from that moment abstain
from all intoxicating liquors until death should them part. Then
looking down and tenderly smiling into the eyes of his wife, he
said: "Is it not well, dear one?" With a face beaming all over with
a new happiness, she replied:

"Indeed it is, John-let's take a drink." And they took one, she with
sugar and he plain.

The spot is still pointed out to the traveller. The Late Dowling,
Senior.

My friend, Jacob Dowling, Esq., had been spending the day very
agreeably in his counting-room with some companions, and at night
retired to the domestic circle to ravel out some intricate accounts.
Seated at his parlour table he ordered his wife and children out of
the room and addressed himself to business. While clambering wearily
up a column of figures he felt upon his cheek the touch of something