Things, instead of getting better, grew worse, year after year. The rent Mrs. Lyon managed always to pay; for the fear of seeing her husband carried off to jail was ever before her eyes, stimulating her to constant exertion; but down, down, down they went steadily and surely, and the light of hope faded daily, and grew dimmer and dimmer before the eyes of the much-enduring wife and mother. Amid all, her patience was wonderful. She never spoke angrily to Ralph, but strove, rather, always to appear cheerful before him. If he was disposed to talk, she would talk with him, and humor his mood of mind; if he was gloomy and silent, she would intrude nothing upon him calculated to fret his temper; if he complained, she tried to soothe him. But it availed nothing. The man was in a charmed circle, and every impulse tended to throw him into the centre where ruin awaited him. At last even the few dollars she had received every week from her husband’s earnings, ceased to come into her hands. The wretched man worked little over half his time, and drank up all that he made. Even the amount of food that the entire product of Mrs. Lyon’s labor would procure, was barely sufficient to satisfy the hunger of her family. The clothes of her children soon began to hang in tatters about them; her own garments were faded, worn, and patched; and every thing about the house that had not been sold to pay rent, was in a dilapidated condition. Still, there had been no unkind word, not even a remonstrance from the much-enduring wife. Matters at last reached a climax. Poor Mrs. Lyon had not been able to get any thing to do for a week, and all supplies of food, except a little meal, were exhausted. An anxious day had closed, and at night-fall the mother made some hasty-pudding for the children, which was eaten with a little milk. This consumed her entire store. She had four children, the two oldest she put to bed, but kept the two youngest, one five years old, and the other three, up with her. She moved about with a firmer step than usual, and her lips were tightly closed, as if she had made up her mind to do something from which, under ordinary circumstances, she would have shrunk.