"Oh, Richard, pray don't leave me again to-night! See how nice everything is, and I promise you it shall always be so." "Don't take on so, lass," he said, touched by the sight of her tears; "I won't be long away, but I've made a promise, and must stick to it," and with that Jane had to be content. But though she watched until she grew weary he came not to cheer her loneliness. She had carelessly permitted him to leave her side, and now other influences were around him, and she must reap the consequences of her folly. From that time Jane's evenings were spent in solitude and tears. In vain she sought to keep her husband under the safe shelter of his own roof. When he would have yielded to her entreaties, his companions came and carried him away in triumph. Eventually, Jane grew resentful and careless, and when her first little one was born she had settled down to habitual neglect of her home and her own person. The responsibility of motherhood roused her to fresh efforts, which, if she had persevered in them, might have proved successful, but she soon relapsed into her slatternly ways, and was content to spend her days listlessly nursing her baby, and musing upon the wretchedness of her lot. At first Richard had taken considerable pride in the tiny atom of humanity which had found its way into the home; but baby came in for her share of neglect, and after a while her father took little notice of her. "Poor little baby! your father doesn't care for you or me! He loves the drink and his public-house mates a deal better than the pair of us," sighed Jane many a time. Well, Jane, who sent him to the public-house to find friends and amusements, in the first place? You have no one to thank but yourself you know, or you might know, if you would care to think. But Jane seldom did think, and the gulf in the cottage home between husband and wife grew wider and deeper as the months and years rolled away. Children were born to their lot of misery and neglect, and Jane had hard work to fill their hungry mouths and cover their nakedness. Pitifully small grew the weekly sum which Richard brought home to meet the growing need of those who belonged to him. How else could it be when so large a portion of his hard-earned money went to support the wife and children of the thriving publican whose house Richard patronised every evening of the week? "I don't know how you expect me to get bread and pay rent with that pittance," said Jane one Saturday evening as he threw a few shillings into her lap. "If it isn't enough, why don't you go out, then, and earn for yourself, like many a better woman than you is doing?" he growled. How low Richard had sunk! But he had only gone down one step at a time. "And who'd look after your children, I'd like to know, while their mother's away slaving?" retorted his wife.