"You ask after Carrie Carleton. Poor woman, hers has been a sad lot. Her husband has dragged her down the steeps of misfortune, until worn and weary, Consumption has smitten her, and she weeps on the verge of the grave. Weeps, did I say? Yes, for him, but as for herself, she trusts all in the hands of her Saviour. What a miracle is love when hallowed and refined by piety! Of high family, and nurtured tenderly, yet allied by marriage to a sot and a tyrant, it is impossible to paint what she has so uncomplainingly endured. Some three years since a hollow cough, and frequent bleeding from the lungs admonished that her trials would be short. Physicians gave her up. But see how, at the mercy of circumstances, we are in this world. Evans, under the labors of the Washingtonians, reformed. For a time he seemed a man again, was frugal, industrious, and kind. But, insidiously tempted, he tasted again the enchanted cup, and sank lower than before. During his reformation Carrie became like one raised from the dead; her step regained its elasticity, and her laugh its gladness. She attributed this to a change of medicine, but when George again fell, she declined rapidly. His course in the downward road was fearfully accelerated. His business neglected, his credit gone, his days spent in the tippling-shop, and his nights in haunts of iniquity, on her devolved the sustenance of the family. This she worked hard to provide by taking boarders. But who would long remain to witness her sorrows, and to share her ill-treatment at the hands of her ill-clad, profane, and fault-finding companion? So, in a miserable chamber, Carrie toiled with her needle, solicitous for her husband when away, lest in the helplessness of inebriety, or in some drunken brawl, injury would come to him, or he commit some horrid crime." It was affecting, amid all these hardships, to see how uncomplaining was the wife. When others censured his conduct she would make excuses for him, striving to make it appear that he was not so bad as they thought, or that his evil deeds were attributable to the influence of others. Once only did she speak at all freely of her sufferings. It was when visiting at good deacon J.'s. After the family had retired, overburdened with anguish, she poured into the ears of the deacon and his sympathizing wife such a tale of neglect, anxiety, deprivation, and abuse, as well nigh broke their hearts. "And why don't you leave such a monster forever?" said Mrs. J., her eyes streaming with tears. "Oh!" she mournfully returned, "you can not tell what you would do as a drunkard's wife." Then added, rising and wringing her hands, "I love George, with all his faults! There's no living with him, and there's no living without him!"