"I don't remember, Henry, your promising to be home for tea; and if I did, I could not have depended upon your promise, for, you know, lately you have disappointed us so often that we can no longer trust your word. Oh, Henry! I only wish I could trust you as I once could, and then there would not be a happier woman in Bayton." "I don't want any of your snivelling, Nell," he said; "I'd rather have something to eat." The supper was eaten in silence, the children being afraid to speak, and Mrs. Morris's heart was too full for conversation. She sat silently rocking in her low arm-chair, the tears welling from her eyes and chasing each other down her cheeks. She had noticed the scratches upon her husband's face, which he had received in his recent fight. She did not ask him how he came by them, for she well knew how violent his temper was; but she was almost certain he had been mixed in some low bar-room affray, and this thought pained her beyond measure. When they were married he was a blacksmith in good circumstances, and carried on an extensive business; but he had for the last few years been drinking deeply, and, as a consequence, had so neglected his business that most of his customers left him; and this, with what he spent in drink, had so reduced him in circumstances that he and his family were now very poor. He had desisted from drink when the Dunkin Act came in force, and for a while his home was cheerful again, for a great sorrow was lifted from it, and his steady habits were bringing in money sufficient to purchase many little comforts which had been wanting during the time he was indulging in drink. But this did not last long, for he was one that was selected as a victim by the antis, and they soon succeeded in making him succumb to their wiles. I will not enter into a lengthy description of how their hellish purpose was accomplished, suffice it to say that in his case, as well as in Barton's, Ashton's, Dr. Dalton's, and many others, the conspiracy was, from the diabolical standpoint of the antis, a success. All over the county men were entrapped into drinking by the nefarious means employed, entailing, in some instances, horrible murders and deaths from accidents and exposure; and the misery which helpless women and poor little innocent children suffered will never be known on this side of the judgment. The victims fell easy preys to their wily seducers, for when a man once contracts an appetite for spirituous liquors it is, in nine cases out of ten, easy to tempt him again to his fall; and none knew this better than those who were engaged in this conspiracy, for they were old and experienced hands at the business.