It was a regular custom with Wilkinson to stop at a drinking-house on his way to his store, and get a glass of brandy.  This was an afternoon as well as a morning custom, which had been continued so long that it was now a habit.  Yet he was not aware of this fact, and, if he had thought about the custom, would have regarded it as one easily abandoned.  He had a glimpse of his error on the present occasion.

To do a thing by habit is to do it without reflection; and herein lies the dangerous power of habit; for, when we act from confirmed habit, it is without thought as to the good or evil to result from our action.  Thus had Wilkinson been acting for months as regards his regular glass of brandy in the morning and afternoon, while passing from his dwelling to his store.  Not until now was he in the least conscious that habit was gaining an undue power over him.

As the eyes of Wilkinson rested upon the form of a certain elegant coloured glass lamp standing in front of a well-known drinking-house, he was conscious of a desire for his accustomed draught of brandy and water; but, at the same instant, there came a remembrance of the painful occurrences of the evening previous, and he said to himself—­“One such lesson ought to make me hate brandy, and every thing else that can rob me of a true regard for the happiness of Mary.”

Yet, even as he said this, habit, disturbed in the stronghold of its power, aroused itself, and furnished him with an argument that instantly broke down his forming resolution.  This argument was his loss of rest, the consequent debility arising therefrom, and the actual need of his system for something stimulating, in order to enable him to enter properly upon the business of the day.

So habit triumphed.  Wilkinson, without even pausing at the door, entered the drinking-house and obtained his accustomed glass of brandy.

“I feel a hundred per cent. better,” said he, as he emerged from the bar-room and took his way to his store.  “That was just what my system wanted.”

Yet, if he felt, for a little while, better as regarded his bodily sensations, the act did not leave him more comfortable in mind.  His instinctive consciousness of having done wrong in yielding to the desire for brandy, troubled him.

“I shall have to break up this habit entirely,” he remarked to himself during the morning, as his thought returned, again and again, to the subject.  “I don’t believe I’m in any particular danger; but, then, it troubles Mary; and I can’t bear to see her troubled.”

While he thus communed with himself, his friend Ellis dropped in.

I meant to have called earlier,” said Ellis, “to ask about your sick child, but was prevented by a customer.  She is better, I hope?”

“Oh, yes, much better, thank you.”

“What was the matter?” inquired Ellis.

“She is teething, and was thrown into convulsions.”