Title:  The Two Wives

Author:  T.S.  Arthur

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

Release Date:  November, 2003 [Etext #4621] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 20, 2002]

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THE TWO WIVES;

Or, lost and won.

By T. S. Arthur.

Philadelphia: 

1851.

PREFACE.

The story of the “Two Wives; or, Lost and Won,” is intended to show the power of tender, earnest, self-forgetting love, in winning back from the path of danger a husband whose steps have strayed, and who has approached the very brink of ruin; and, by contrast, to exhibit the sad consequences flowing from a want of these virtues under like circumstances.

This book is the third in the Series of “ARTHUR’S Library for the household.”  The fourth, which is nearly ready, will be called “The ways of Providence; or, he DOETH all things well.”

THE TWO WIVES.

CHAPTER I.

“You are not going out, John?” said Mrs. Wilkinson, looking up from the work she had just taken into her hands.  There was a smile on her lips; but her eyes told, plainly enough, that a cloud was upon her heart.

Mrs. Wilkinson was sitting by a small work-table, in a neatly furnished room.  It was evening, and a shaded lamp burned upon the table.  Mr. Wilkinson, who had been reading, was standing on the floor, having thrown down his book and risen up hastily, as if a sudden purpose had been formed in his mind.

“I shall only be gone a little while, dear,” returned Mr. Wilkinson, a slight air of impatience visible beneath his kind voice and manner.