But Father Baguss was not the only instrument of the salvation of Tappelmine. In existence, but scarcely known of or recognized, there was a Mrs. Tappelmine. With face, hair, eyes, and garments of the same color, the color itself being neutral; small, thin, faded, inconspicuous, poorly clad, bent with labors which had yielded no return, as dead to the world as saints strive to be, yet remaining in the world for the sake of those whom she had often wished out of it, Mrs. Tappelmine devoted herself to the wreck of what was once a hope over which her eyes had been of a luster which high-born maidens had envied, and a hope in which her heart had throbbed with a joy which had seemed too great for life to hold. About the bedside of her husband she hovered day and night. When she slept no one but herself knew, and she herself did not care. When Tappelmine made his verbal agreement with Father Baguss, she had listened with a joy whose earnestness was as nothing compared with her resolution. She had hurried away from the broken window to a corner where her dirty children were at quarrelsome play, and she had bestowed upon each of them a passionate caress which startled even the little wretches themselves into wondering silence. From that moment she watched her husband’s every movement, and Tappelmine, like a true Pike--for the Pike, like the Transcendentalist, existed ages before he found his way into literature--Tappelmine subjected himself into his wife’s dominion. He made numberless excuses to go to some place where liquor could be found; she, with the wisdom of the serpent, yet the gentleness of the dove, prevented him. As, through the course of her husband’s labors, under the eye of Baguss, he had grown more silent than ever, she had increased her exertions for his comfort; when, finally, the task was completed, and Tappelmine, with thinner face and hollower eyes than ever, fell heavily upon his rude bed and uttered--almost screamed--the single word “Whiskey!” she was on her knees beside him in an instant. “Jerry,” she exclaimed, “you’ve got the better of whiskey these late days.” “Just a drop more--to keep me from dying,” gasped Tappelmine. “Don’t, Jerry,” she pleaded. “Let me hold you tight, so you _can’t_ die.” “Just a drop, for God’s sake, Mariar!” said Tappelmine imploringly. “O Jerry!” replied the wife, “don’t--for the children’s sake; _they’re_ more to you than God is. I hope he’ll forgive me for sayin’ it.” “Only a single mouthful, Mariar,” said Tappelmine, “to keep me from sinkin’.” “You’re not sinkin’, old man--Jerry, dear; you’re gittin’ _up_. _Keep_ up, Jerry.” “I’ll be all right in a day or two, Mariar, if I only get a taste. You don’t want a sick man a-layin’ around, not fit to do for his young ones?” “You don’t need to, Jerry. _I’ll_ do for ’em, if you’ll only--only make ’em proud of you.” “It’ll make me good for more to _you_, old woman--one single mouthful will,” said Tappelmine.