material.  The remainder and larger part facing the east was to be kitchen, dining and living room.  Mrs. Wheaton did the heavy work, and looked on in delighted wonder as the young girl, with a gift peculiarly her own, gave an air of grace and homelike coziness to every part.  Hers was a true woman’s touch in woman’s undisputed realm, and her father, with strange alternations of sighs and smiles, assisted her after his return from business.  Gas had never been introduced in the old house, and so two pretty shaded lamps were bought.  One stood on the lofty, old-fashioned mantel, which was so high that Mildred could pass under it without stooping, and the other on the table that was to serve for many uses.

“If we should put a crane in the fireplace,” Mr. Jocelyn dreamily mused, “I could imagine that we were at my old home in the South;” but she had said they could not afford that amount of sentiment, and therefore a stove was obtained of the same model that shrewd Mrs. Wheaton had found so well adapted to varied uses.

After two busy days their task was wellnigh completed, and Mildred slept in her own little room, which she was to share with Belle, and her weariness, and the sense that the resting-place was hers by honest right, brought dreamless and refreshing sleep.  For the sake of “auld lang syne,” her father kindled a fire on the hearth, and sat brooding over it, looking regretfully back into the past, and with distrustful eyes toward the future.  The dark commercial outlook filled that future with many uncertain elements; and yet, alas! he felt that he himself was becoming the chief element of uncertainty in the problem of their coming life.  There were times when he could distinguish between his real prospects and his vague opium dreams, but this power of correct judgment was passing from him.  When not under the influence of the drug everything looked dull, leaden, and hopeless.  Thus he alternated between utter dejection, for which there would have been no cause were he in his normal condition, and sanguine hopes and expectations that were still more baseless.  He had not gone to a physician and made known his condition, as he had intended while on his brief visit to the country; his pride had revolted at such a confession of weakness, and he felt that surely he would have sufficient strength of mind to break the spell unaided.  But, so far from breaking it, every day had increased its power.

The effects of opium and the strength of the habit, as is the case with other stimulants, vary with the temperament and constitution of the victims.  A few can use it with comparative moderation and with no great detriment for a long time, especially if they allow considerable intervals to elapse between the periods of indulgence, but they eventually sink into as horrible a thraldom as that which degrades the least cautious.  Upon far more the drug promptly fastens its deathly grip, and too often when they awaken to their danger they find themselves almost