“I happen to know the history of this family, and all that followed. Work was plentiful at first, and John earned pretty good wages; but Sarah—for that was her name—had married before she had learned how to make the most of money, as you will suppose, when I tell you that she had to _pay_ for the making of her wedding gown. The husband soon found the public-house was more attractive than his dirty home and miserably cooked meals; and you know, after that happens, how fast the money goes. But the saddest part of all relates to the poor, unoffending, helpless children, who came one by one into this wretched dwelling. Their mother was not badly disposed, and had she spent ten years longer, before marriage, in learning how to provide for the wants of the body, and train the mind, she might have done better than many women; but, as it was, on the whole face of the earth the eye could scarcely alight on a more completely wretched spot than this one room, where, day after day, the father, mother, and children suffered everything that can enfeeble the body and degrade the mind. “The united effect of cold, bad air, starvation, and neglect, was to consign seven out of nine of their children to the grave before they had reached their sixth year. The other two are, I believe, still living, the inmates of a workhouse; their deformed and diseased bodies preventing the possibility of their earning their own livelihood. As they pass their suffering days and wearisome nights in that dreary abode, with _nothing_ to hope so far as this world is concerned, how bitterly could they protest against their mother’s remark that her imprudent marriage was nothing to any one else but herself! The father and mother are long since dead; disease, brought on prematurely by intemperance, cut short their lives before they had lived out half the time usually appointed to man on earth. “I feel sure that most of such suffering might be saved, if mothers would try from the first to present this subject in a right light to their children. Much good may be done, too, by endeavouring to raise the tastes of young people so that they shall _like_ to surround themselves with what is good, and neat, and comfortable; for this _feeling_ belongs quite as much to your position in life as to mine. The only difference is as to the degree in which it can be carried out. Believe me, it is anything but a _virtue_ for a young couple to begin life together, satisfied with just one room to live in, furnished with a bed stuffed with straw, a table, and a few broken chairs.