The reader might be ready to assert, after reading this connubial wrangle, that the fault was not all on one side, but that Nancy's sharp tongue was in some measure responsible for Tom's drinking; that, in fact, if she had not been such a termagant he might, at least, have been an average husband. But if you have so concluded, I will endeavour to disabuse your mind; for Nancy, before she married Tom Flatt, was a smart, good-tempered lass, but his continued neglect and abuse had vinegared all her sweetness, and she was not of that temperament which could bear ill-treatment without giving expression to her feelings. If, in her youth, she had been surrounded by different associations, and then married to a man who could have appreciated her, she might have developed into an intelligent, loving woman; but the terrible wretchedness of her life, brought about by the faults of her husband, had turned all her nature into bitterness. And let me ask any of my gentle readers if, under similar circumstances, honeyed words would have been uttered by you? If you had suffered such treatment, and not only you but your children, who were bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, do you not think you would protest? If you were being dragged down into the slough of poverty, disgrace, and wretchedness, and you knew that he who was thus dragging you down could, if he were a true husband and father, place you in a position of comfort and respectability, but who was devouring from you and your children food that you had earned by the most menial drudgery--by the sweat of body and brain--and leaving you all to nearly famish for bread, would you not remonstrate? Nay, would not feelings of outraged confidence, of soul-anguish, sorrow, and shame coin themselves into bitter chiding words which you would be powerless to repress? How many thousands of sweet, pure souls, who, in their innocent maiden days, were the embodiment of gentleness and affection, have, after marriage to some brute in human shape, been brought, by years of neglect and abuse, to become that which is among the most maligned and despised of all creatures--a scolding wife. We must, in all fairness, admit that such Nancy Flatt had become. Her nature, as we have said, was intense, and she had endured a great deal in her early married life. At first she would gently remonstrate, but as years rolled on and she had not only to suffer neglect and abuse herself, but her helpless little ones also, her remonstrances became tinged with the acidity of her soured nature; and finally as toil, neglect, and hunger reduced her to the haggard, dejected creature we have presented to the reader, she would meet Tom's oaths and blows with her only weapon of defence, and pour out sharp, rasping words from her woman's tongue. "I tell you what it is, Nance," said Tom, in answer to her chiding; "I want you to shut that jaw of thine and get me some grub, or I'll make you wish you had never been born."