The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1886-09-10

though all the while he grew more and
more gay in his r%ctorts, more brilliant and
entertaining. When her guests had left,
poor Ruth, sick at heart, looked at hel
husband and thought how unlike the
Frank of old he seemed.
whats the matter with you? ?" he ask
ed gruflly,
"Oh, Frank! Frank! you are running
your own life? Why will you drink like
this p"
"A~nybody's business but mine ?" he
asked. "What's the reason | can't have a
friendly glass when | want it I eau stop
when please"
"Then l wish you had stopped six
months ago."
"Ruth, be silent, you annoy me"
"Annoy you,' she replied, starting
YEARLY up the stairs. "Annoy you! And
you, you are breaking my heart. There
seems a demon in your soul. At times
hardly know you. look into your future
and see only misery for rs both if you keep
this up. You are killing your better nature;
you are making a brute of yourself"
Frank, who had staggered up to the
~stair-landing, felt all the unreasoning
anger of a drunken man. "a brute, am l?
A brute? And it's my fine young lady
wife who says this. A brute!" he scream
ed, his eyes cleaning wildly, and taking
a quick step forward he pushed her angrily
against the stair-railing. Startled, she
sprang backward, missing her footing, and
fell down the long flight of stairs, striking
the lower landing heavily, where she lay
motionless and white.
Frank looked down at her and laughed
like a maniac.
"Sce what a brute can do!'' he shouted
Cant you call me pet names again ?"
But by that time the servants. hearing
the noise, had rushed to the spot. and See
ing poor Ruth lying white and cold,
screamed, Dead She's deadr'
The sharp cry seemed to pierce Franks
clouded brain, and to leave that dreadful
word stamped there. Dead! Dead.
Dead!' he moaned, in a dazed way,
rubbing his hot head, and then, Don
er than can be told, was kneeling
at his wifc's side. Bring water!' he
called. "Oh, she can't be dead. Help me,
help me! Call a physician. Oh Ruth, my
darling, open your eyes. Look at mt for
a moment. God, what have done ?"
He sobbed like a child, rubbed her
white hands and dashed cold water in her
pallid face, while the sympathetic servants,
crying silently, did what they could to
restore her to consciousness. Before the
doctor arrived she had opened her eyes in
il dazed way, but without seeming to
know any one.
All than night there was alarm and con-
fusion in the house. The grave old ply
stefan pronounced it simply a serious ner-
vous shock, not apt to prove fatal, but from
which it would take time to rally, and was
glad to discover that no moro serious in
iuries had resulted from her terrible fall.
Frank did not leave her bedside. Through
all her rawlings, before consciousness re-
turned, he was her devoted and patient
nurse, though his heart ached with re-
morse as he heard her repeatedly going over
the story ofhis shame and her own sorrow.
On the first morning that the invalid
could be carried downstairs, there was a
queer sort of ceremony gone through with
in the dining-room. Frank with manly
tears confessed his sins before his little
~wife-confessor, told her that he meant
0euer, SO long as he lived, to touch another
drop of liquor or keep it in his home. And
when tears and kisses had been lavishly
expended, twelve little wine-glasses and
two pretty decantcrs were brought forth
and smashed into atoms, amid crying and
laughing. and a funeral speech from
Frank.
And late that night if you'd been near an
old dump-pilc, way out IN the common,
you might have heard those atoms of glass
congratulating themselves on the change,
for. as one little ragged edged piece remark
ed, 'I'd rather be ont here a%ssoeiating
with old cans and stew-pans, doing no
mischief, than to be pretty and clean, sit
ting in state on the side-board, and break
ing hearts, wreeking lives and deal
ing out poison to men," And all the
happy little smashed bits said "Amen,"
and that ended the wine-set.-Mdud RH-
tenh0use.