you up. I'll have breakfast ready for you all by the time you can
return, and I'm so eager to see mamma that I could fly to her."

Mortified that he should even appear dilatory at such a time,
he hastened away, but he was far beyond such a mild stimulant as
coffee. Even now, when events were occurring which would naturally
sustain from their deep personal interest, he found himself reduced
to an almost complete dependence on an unnatural support. Before
sleeping he had appealed to his dread master, and his first waking
moments brought a renewed act of homage. Opium was becoming his
god, his religion. Already it stood between him and his wife and
children. It was steadily undermining his character, and if not
abandoned would soon leave but the hollow semblance of a man.

As the steamboat arrived in the night, Mrs. Jocelyn had no sense of
disappointment at not being met, and through Mildred's persistency
it was still early when her husband appeared. His greeting was so
affectionate, and he appeared so well after his hasty walk, that
the old glad, hopeful look came into her eyes. To Belle and the
children, coming back to the city was like coming home as in former
years, only a little earlier. The farm had grown to be somewhat of
an old story, and Belle had long since voted it dull.

"Well, Nan, we've come down to two rooms in very truth, and in an
old, old house, too, that will remind you of some of the oldest in
the South," and he drew such a humorous and forlorn picture of their
future abode that his wife felt that he had indeed taken her at
her word, and that they would scarcely have a place to lay their
heads, much less to live in any proper sense; and when she stopped
before the quaint and decrepit house without any front door; when