Mr. Graham was a merchant of high standing in Philadelphia, where, for many years, he had been engaged extensively in the East India trade.  Six beautiful ships floated for years upon the ocean, returning at regular intervals, freighted with the rich produce of the East, and filling his coffers, until they overflowed, with accumulating wealth.  But it was not wealth alone that gave to Mr. Graham the elevated social position that he held.  His strong intelligence, and the high moral tone of his character, gave him an influence and an estimation far above what he derived from his great riches.  In the education of his children, four in number, he had been governed by a wise regard to the effect which that education would have upon them as members of society.  He early instilled into their minds a desire to be useful to others, and taught them the difference between an estimation of individuals, founded upon their wealth and position in society, and an estimation derived from intrinsic excellence of character.  The consequence of, all this was, to make him beloved by his family—­purely and tenderly beloved, because there was added to the natural affection for one in his position, the power of a deep respect for his character and principles.

At the time of his introduction to the reader, Mr. Graham was forty-five years old.  Alfred, his oldest child, was twenty-one; Mary, nineteen; Ellen, eighteen; and Anna just entering her sixteenth year.  Up to this time, or nearly to this time, a happier family circled no hearth in the city.  But now an evil wing was hovering over them, the shadow from which had already been perceived by the mother’s heart, as it fell coldly and darkly upon it, causing it to shrink and tremble with gloomy apprehensions.  From early manhood up, it had been the custom of Mr. Graham to use wines and brandies as liberally as he desired, without, the most remote suspicion once crossing his mind that any danger to him could attend the indulgence.  But to the eye of his wife, whose suspicions had of late been aroused, and her perceptions rendered, in consequence, doubly acute, it had become apparent that the habit was gaining a fatal predominance over him.  She noted, with painful emotions, that as each evening returned, there were to her eye too evident indications that he had been indulging so freely in the use of liquors, as to have his mind greatly obscured.  His disposition, too, was changing; and he was becoming less cheerful in his family, and less interested in the pleasures and pursuits of his children.  Alfred, whom he had, up to this time, regarded with an earnest and careful solicitude, was now almost entirely left to his own guidance, at an age, too, when he needed more than ever the direction of his father’s matured experience.