"You must go back to your master, boy," said the father, after a pause. "When you wish to come home, ask his consent." "He doesn't object to my coming home," said Willy, his voice still quivering. "Go back, I tell you! Take your hat, there, and go back. Don't come here any more with your tales!" The boy glanced towards his mother, and read pity and sympathy in her countenance, but she did not countermand the order; for she knew that if she did so, a scene of violence would follow. "Ask to come home in the morning," said she to her boy, as she held his hand tightly in hers at the door. He gave her a look of tender thankfulness, and then went forth into the darkness, feeling so sad and wretched that he could not repress his tears. Seven years. And was only this time required to effect such a change! Ah! rum is a demon! How quickly does it transform the tender husband and parent into a cruel beast! Look upon these two pictures, ye who tarry long at the wine! Look at them, but do not say they are overdrawn! They have in them only the sober hues and subdued colors of truth. BRANDY AS A PREVENTIVE. THE cholera had made its appearance in New York, and many deaths were occurring daily. Among those who weakly permitted themselves to feel an alarm amounting almost to terror, was a Mr. Hobart, who, from the moment the disease manifested itself, became infested with the idea that he would be one of its victims. "Doctor," said he to his family physician, meeting him one day in the street, "is there nothing which a man can take that will act as a preventive to cholera?" "I'll tell you what I do," replied the doctor. "Well, what is it?" "I take a glass of good brandy twice a day. One in the morning and the other after dinner." "Indeed! And do you think brandy useful in preventing the disease?" "I think it a protection," said the doctor. "It keeps the system slightly stimulated; and is, besides, a good astringent." "A very simple agent," remarked Mr. Hobart. "Yes, the most simple that we can adopt. And what is better, the use of it leaves no after bad consequences, as is too often the case with medicines, which act upon the system as poisons." "Sometimes very bad consequences arise from the use of brandy," remarked Mr. Hobart. "I have seen them in my time." "Drunkenness, you mean." "Yes." "People who are likely to make beasts of themselves had better let it alone," said the doctor, contemptuously. "If they should take the cholera and die, it will be no great loss to the world." "And you really think a little good brandy, taken daily, fortifies the system against the cholera?" "Seriously I do," replied the doctor. "I have adopted this course from the first, and have not been troubled with a symptom of the disease." "I feel very nervous on the subject. From the first I have been impressed with the idea that I would get the disease and die." "That is a weakness, Mr. Hobart."