“Mr. W—­indade!” retorted Kitty, indignantly, struggling to free herself.  “Is Mr. W—­a thafe of a nager, ma’am?”

But even Kitty’s eyes, as soon as they took the pains to look more closely, saw that it was indeed all as the mistress had said.  W—­had fallen over on his face, and his head and white neck were not to be mistaken.

The pole dropped from Kitty’s hands, and, with the exclamation, “Och! murther!” she turned and shot from the room, with as good a will as she had entered it.

The blow which W—­received was severe, breaking through the flesh and bruising and lacerating his ear badly.  He recovered very soon, however, and, as he arose up, caught sight of himself in a looking glass that hung opposite.  We may be sure that it took all parties, in this exciting and almost tragical affair, some time to understand exactly what was the matter.  W—­’s recollection of the loud merriment that had driven him from the “Black Horse” on the previous night, when it revived, as it did pretty soon, explained all to him, and set him to talking in a most unchristian manner.

Poor Kitty was so frightened at what she had done that she gathered up her “duds” and fled instanter, and was never again seen in that neighborhood.

As for W—­, he was cured of his nocturnal visits to the “Black Horse,” and his love of whisky toddy.  Some months afterwards he espoused the temperance cause, and I’ve heard him tell the tale myself, many a time, and laugh heartily at the figure he must have cut, when Kitty commenced beating him for a “thafe of a nager.”

THE BROKEN PLEDGE.

“IT is two years, this very day, since I signed the pledge,” remarked Jonas Marshall, a reformed drinker, to his wife, beside whom he sat one pleasant summer evening, enjoying the coolness and quiet of that calm hour.

“Two years!  And is it, indeed, so long?” was the reply.  “How swiftly time passes, when the heart is not oppressed with cape and sorrow!”

“To me, they have been the happiest of my life,” resumed the husband.  “How much do we owe to this blessed reformation!”

“Blessed, indeed, may it be called!” the wife said, with feeling.

“It seems scarcely possible, Jane, that one, who, like me, had become such a slave to intoxication, could have been reclaimed.  I often think of myself, and wonder.  A little over two years ago, I could no more control the intolerable desire for liquor that I felt, than I could fly.  Now I have not the least inclination to touch, taste, or handle it.”

“And I pray Heaven you may never again have!”

“That danger is past, Jane.  Two years of total abstinence have completely changed the morbid craving once felt for artificial stimulus, into a natural and healthy desire for natural and healthy aliments.”

“It would be dangerous for you even now, Jonas, to suffer a drop of liquor to pass your lips; do you not think so?”