tenement classes at all, and Mrs. Wheaton correctly feared that the purgatory which was the corner-stone in their neighbors’ creeds would be realized in the temporal experience of the Southern family.  Now that the step had been taken, however, she concealed her anxieties, and did her best to avoid collisions with the burly, red-faced women and insolent children whose officious offers of help were but thin veils to a coarse curiosity and a desire for petty pilfering.  Mildred shuddered at the people about her, and was cold and brief in her words.  As it was, Fred nearly brought on general hostilities by resisting a shock-headed little urchin who had not the remotest regard for the principles of MEUM and TUUM.  As the sun declined the general verdict of the neighbors was, “They thinks themselves too foine for the loikes o’ us, but we’ll tache ’em.”

After Mrs. Wheaton had departed with many misgivings, Mildred took her father aside and told him plainly what had occurred the evening before.  He sat with his face buried in his hands, and listened without a word.  Indeed, he was so overwhelmed with shame and remorse that he was speechless.  “Papa, look at me,” she said at last.

Slowly he raised his bloodshot, fearful eyes to hers, and the expression of his child’s face made him tremble.

“Papa,” she said slowly, and her tones were both sad and stern, “you must never come home drunk again.  Another such scene might cost mamma her life.  If you will take opium, we cannot help it, but you must drink no more vile liquor.  I have now learned from bitter experience what the latter means, and what it must lead to.  I shall not fail in love and duty to you, but I cannot permit mamma, Belle, and the children to be utterly destroyed.  You may do some wild, reckless deed that would blast us all beyond remedy; therefore, if you have a particle of self-control left, let rum alone, or else we must protect ourselves.  We have endured it thus far, not with patience and resignation, but in a sort of apathetic despair.  This apathy has been broken.  Belle is becoming reckless, mamma is dying of a broken heart, and the little ones are exposed to influences that threaten to blight their lives.  There must be some change for the better.  We must at least be relieved from the fear of bodily harm and the intolerable shame of such scenes as occurred last night.  In our hard struggle we must find some kind of a refuge and some degree of quiet and peace in what we call home.  It is no kindness to you to endure in silence any longer, and I now see that it will be fatal to those we both love.  You may not be able to refrain from opium, but you can and must give up liquor.  If you cannot, and there is a remedy in the land, we must avail ourselves of it.  I do not know what kind of a place you have brought us to, but I feel sure that we shall need protection.  If you should come home again as you did last night, I am satisfied, from the looks of the people in this house, that we should have a scene of violence that I shudder to think of.  You had better—­it would be more merciful to stab mamma to her heart than to cause her death by drunkenness.”