"Timothy Morris, as I live!" exclaimed George Dixon, dropping the cards in sheer amazement, while upon his mind there rushed a score of memories, some joyous and bright; others, and these of later days, sad and sin-shadowed. "Don't carry on so, Susan," he said; "it makes me feel bad, for I've been as much in the wrong as you." [Illustration: "Look at the signature, and think what that man used to be."--_Page 76._] "Oh, George, I wouldn't care if I'd only cursed and ruined myself; but look there!" and she pointed to the five children, who, half terrified at the scene, were huddling together in the corner. "Come here, Mattie," she said; "go to your father, child, and ask him if he remembers the golden-haired, bonnie baby who sat on his knee and pulled his hair when he came home, nigh upon eight years ago, and told me that the drunken sot, whose name is on your pledge-card, had turned teetotal. Ask him if you look like that baby at all. Oh, you needn't turn away, George, for you know there's but one answer. And what's made the difference between that happy home, and this beastly place? and what's made me and you more like brutes than the loving couple we were, eh, George?" With streaming eyes Susan stood before her husband, waiting for the answer to her questions. Gnashing his teeth, as if in despair, he hissed out: "It's the moderate drinking as has worked all the mischief, woman, if you want to know; and may God's curse rest upon it!" Mattie began to understand at length the meaning of her parents' distress, and hastened to proffer the only advice that was in her power to give. "Daddie, mammie," she said, "won't you come and sign the pledge too? Then you won't never touch the drink again, and we'll have a nice home; and me, and Melie, and Bob'll stay with you, and never run away as we've been a talking of." Then Melie and Bob came and said: "Oh, please do! We're so hungry and miser'ble all the time; and if you'll only give up the drink we'll be so good, and never want any beating." George looked at Susan across the upturned faces of the children, and Susan looked back at him wistfully, earnestly. "Susan," said George, in low, troubled tones; "if I promise now, can I ever keep my word? for I'm raging for a drop this minute." Susan might have answered, "So am I," but, with a touch of returning womanliness, she hid her own suffering that she might minister to the need of the man who thus confessed his weakness.