It was vain, she saw, to strive with the hard-hearted man, whose face was like iron. Hurriedly leaving his house, she hastened back to the office, but her husband was not there. In her absence he had been removed to prison. When Mrs. Lyon fully understood this, she made no remark, but turned from the magistrate and walked home with a firm step. The weakness of the woman was giving way to the quickening energies of the wife, whose husband was in prison, and could not be released except by her efforts. On entering her house, she went to her drawers, and took therefrom a silk dress, but little worn, a mother’s present when she was married; a good shawl, that she had bought from her own earnings when a happy maiden; a few articles of jewelry, that had not been worn for years, most of them presents from Ralph before they had stood at the bridal altar, and sundry other things, that could best be dispensed with. These she took to a pawn-broker’s, and obtained an advance of fifteen dollars. She had two dollars in the house, which made seventeen; the balance of the required sum she borrowed from two or three of her neighbors, and then hurried off to obtain her husband’s release. For a time, the rigid proceedings of the landlord proved a useful lesson to Ralph Lyon. He worked more steadily, and was rather more careful of his earnings. But this did not last a great while. Appetite, long indulged, was strong; and he soon returned to his old habits. The shock the imprisonment of her husband produced, awoke Mrs. Lyon to the necessity of doing something to increase their income. All that he brought home each week was scarcely sufficient to buy food; and it was clear that there would be nothing with which to pay rent when next quarter-day came round, unless it should be the product of her own exertions. Plain sewing was obtained by Mrs. Lyon, and an additional labor of three or four hours in the twenty-four added to her already over-tasked body. Instead of feeling rebuked at this, the besotted husband only perceived in it a license for him to use his own earnings more freely, thus making his poor wife’s condition really worse than it was before.