"Was it a shame in me, my darling, to bring you into this engagement about Nancy Sands?" asked Ned at a later hour of the day, when, seated at a comfortable meal, he made up for lost time by attacking the food with a vigor which amused his wife, who did not know of his having given away his sandwich to the wayfaring man.

"Nay, I think that it would have been a shame had we refused to do what we could for poor Mr. Sands in his trouble. Besides there is nothing very formidable in paying a morning visit to Nancy," added Persis, with a smile; "she has always been rather civil to me. I remember that when I lived in the dell, before my marriage, when my poor old grandfather was ill, Nancy once brought me some broth of her own making, to keep up his strength, as she said."

"Perhaps what her husband told me is true; there may be good metal in her after all, though I own that I don't like the ring of it. He ought to know her best; but I'm not very hopeful about Nancy Sands," said Franks, pushing back his empty plate; "you see, wifie, when once a woman takes to the glass, they say that there's not a chance of her ever getting rid of the habit."

"I never like to hear that said," observed Persis. "Why should a woman, any more than a man, be beyond reach of God's mercy and grace? A woman has often strong, deep affections, and especially shrinks from dragging down her family to misery and ruin."

"But when she is once right in the middle of the whirlpool, can she help being sucked in?" said the sailor, gravely. "Intemperance is like a whirlpool, wifie. Round about it, at some distance from the centre, it looks not much more than a ripple of the sea; the careless pilot might venture upon it, and, unless he keep a sharp lookout at his bearings, scarcely guesses what a strong current is drawing him in, closer and closer, to the down-whirl of waters. Let him sheer off at once, and he is safe; if he slacken sail, and let the vessel drift, why, he's lost,—he comes to a point where he can't get her off, let him strain every muscle as he may. And it's just so with the drinking. A man feels sick, or a woman feels sad; a drop of something will warm and cheer them, they think; and I don't say but that it may often do so, and that spirits may be used as medicine, and be found a good gift of God. But when the 'drop' comes to be taken pretty often; when there is less of water and more of spirits mixed together; when the man (or woman) begins to relish the glass, and think that he can't do without it,—then's the time to sheer off! Don't let him wait till the habit begins to draw him in as with the grasp of a giant, till he finds that the ship won't answer the helm, that he's getting into the wild whirl and will soon be carried whither he would not; let him fix his quantity, measure it, and not go one oar's breadth beyond it; or, if he has not the firmness for that, let him, at any cost, give up the drink altogether, neither taste, nor touch, nor look at it, lest he be engulfed in the treacherous Maelstrom, and soul and body perish together!"

"O Ned," exclaimed Persis, "how fearful it is to think what multitudes are lost in that whirlpool! God grant that poor Nancy be rescued in time!"

"We'll not forget her in our prayers," said Ned Franks.

On the following day John Sands started for London, with a heavy, anxious heart, only lightened by the thought that the sailor was certain to keep his word. Sands lingered at the door of his home, with his carpet-bag in his hand, turning half round in a hesitating manner, as if he fancied that something might have been forgotten.

"I suppose that you've left your papers behind, or maybe your purse," said Nancy, who stood on the threshold to see her husband start on his journey.

"No, it's not that, my dear," half stammered the clerk; "it's that I'm not just easy in mind leaving you here all alone."

"I don't care three farthings for being alone," cried the ungracious wife; "I can find occupation enough, and amusement enough, if I choose."

"That's it, that's just it; I wanted you to promise, dear,—while I'm away, just while I'm away, you understand,—that you—you won't step over to the 'Chequers.'"

"I'll not promise that to you, nor to nobody," said Nancy, with a toss of her head and a snort of disdain; "a pretty pass it's come to, indeed, if I mayn't go and have a gossip with a friend. Mrs. Fuddles of the 'Chequers,' was my school-fellow; you know that as well as I do."

John Sands drew a heavy sigh, and wished from the bottom of his heart that Mrs. Fuddles and the "Chequers" were somewhere at the other side of the world, instead of down in the dell, just beyond the mill. He felt, however, that there was no use in his saying anything more; so Sands set off on his walk to the nearest station, and Nancy stood at the door watching him, as long as the prim figure dressed in black remained within sight. Then she went back into her parlor and sat down, resting her hands on her knees, and gazing with a fixed, dull, joyless stare on the opposite wall. Nancy felt very desolate at that moment, for she had parted with the only being in all the world who really loved her. Mrs. Sands knew that she was already "the talk of the village;" that her neighbors, who had once looked on her as "a thriving, well-to-do woman," now regarded her with contempt; she knew that she was lowered in the eyes of all; and, though she would not have owned that she was so, Nancy was lowered in her own. She scorned, she despised herself for the very vice to which she clung so strongly. She could not bear to be alone with her thoughts; she must drown them in the fiery poison which was already consuming her credit, her happiness, and her peace. Nancy rose, walked up to the cupboard, and took out of it a bottle and a glass. Just as she had pulled out the cork from the former, she heard a soft tap at the door.

"Why, Mrs. Franks, who would have thought of seeing you! and you've brought the baby!" exclaimed Nancy, her face relaxing into an expression of something like pleasure; for she was gratified by the unexpected visit of one whose character stood so high in the village, at a time when her own had so grievously sunk.

Persis took the seat which was offered to her, and listened complacently to the praise of her beautiful boy, and when she marked the shade of sadness in Nancy's tone as she said, "Oh! I know what a mother feels with her first-born babe in her arms," she was glad that she had come on her errand of kindness to the lonely and tempted woman.

"I did not think as you'd have walked as far as this, Mrs. Franks, leastways carrying the child, for you're not over strong," said Mrs. Sands. "You've not been here for a long time; we met oftener when you were Persis Meade."

"Yes, you came to see me in the dell. I remember well your kindness in bringing broth to my poor old grandfather; excellent broth it was; I've no doubt that it did him good."

This little acknowledgment of a single act of past kindness had more effect in thawing the heart of Nancy Sands than Persis could have expected. Nancy's pride would have rebelled at the idea of Franks's wife conferring any favor upon her, but her owning herself to be the obliged party set Mrs. Sands at once at her ease. She liked to talk over past days, happy days as she now thought them, when her own poor boy was living. No one who had only seen Nancy Sands on that morning, sitting chatting with Persis Franks, would have thought of her as the "tigress" whose temper, especially when she was under the influence of drink, made her the terror of her neighbors.

"I'm glad of your visit," she observed after a while; "I was feeling a bit dull all alone."

"I hope that you will return my visit," said Persis; "could you not come over this evening at seven to tea?"

"I suppose your man's out?" said Nancy, shortly. "I warrant you he'd not care to see me."

"Oh, no, my clear husband will be at home; he knew that I was going to invite you. I never do anything without his consent."

"Humph!" grunted Nancy; "that's what I call slavery. I take it a wife's not like a red Indian, tied to a stake."

"No," replied Persis, smiling; "rather like a vine fastened to a supporting, sheltering wall."

"I'm none of your creepers!" cried Nancy, with a saucy toss of the head. "I'm a standard for the matter of that, and don't want to lean upon nobody;" and certainly she did not look like anything that needs a prop, with those stout, strong arms, bared to the elbows, and a red face which might once have been handsome, but which now looked only coarse. "I suppose," continued Mrs. Sands, "that you're one of them meek ones as have old-fashioned notions about wedlock and its duties."

"Very old ones," replied Persis, gently swaying herself to and fro, to rock to slumber the soft little burden so tenderly folded in her arms; "as old, or more so, as the days of Abraham and Sarah."

"I'm one as sticks up for woman's rights," said Nancy, and she drew herself up proudly.

"So am I," observed Persis, looking down on her babe; "but I see them in a different light, perhaps, from what you do. I fancy that it is the husband's right to support, the wife's to lean; the husband's to guide, the wife's to obey; both to honor, to cherish, and to love; at least, it's so with my Ned and me."

Nancy glanced at the happy wife and mother before her, and though she might not choose to imitate, she could neither pity nor despise. She only said, however, "There's no doubt but that wedlock's a yoke to most. If I'd been fastened to one who chose to pull hard one way, why I'd just have dragged the harder the t'other way, and—"

"And I am afraid that then no great progress would have been made either way," said Persis, timidly yet playfully.

Mrs. Sands gave a short, harsh laugh. "I for one could never abide to be dragged down by such clogs as what folks call duty and obedience. Why do you smile, Mrs. Franks?"

"I smiled because your words reminded me of a little fable of a clock."

"What's that? I never heard the fable," said Nancy.

Persis bent down and kissed her baby two or three times, perhaps to give herself time to collect her thoughts, and then began,—

"Once upon a time, all the upper parts of a great kitchen-clock rebelled against the weights. 'Of what use in the world they can be passes my understanding!' cried the wheel. 'Great, heavy, leaden clogs as they are, always dragging down towards earth!'

"'I'm sure that I've nothing to thank them for,' exclaimed the minute-hand, briskly; 'every one looks at me as I go travelling round and round, but who would ever care to stoop to look at the weights below?'

"'They're not fit to be seen!' added the hour-hand; 'if they could be twitched off at once, I dare be bound that I'd go as fast as you do!'

"'I'm tired to death of them!' clicked the pendulum. 'I'm certain that I don't need 'em to keep me swinging steadily backwards and forwards. I'd get on much better without 'em!'

"'They're dumb as fish!' observed the little bell inside. 'I wonder that any clock-maker in his senses ever burdened a clock with weights!'

"One day an idle boy in a fit of mischief pulled both the weights off the clock. It was not long, as you may believe, ere the different parts of the machine found out the effect of the loss.

"The wheel could not turn itself round; the pendulum grew feeble and would not swing.

"'I've come to a dead lock!' cried the minute-hand.

"'I can't get on!' groaned the hour-hand.

"And though both were pointing to twelve, the little hammer could not strike on the bell.

"'Ah,' said the key, that was hanging close by, 'I guess that the clock-maker knew what he was about when he hung on those weights.'"

When Persis Franks stopped, Mrs. Sands laughed.

"I suppose," she said, "that the moral of your fable is that wives get on better with the clogs of duty and obedience than they would do without them! But I find that my hands will move fast enough, and my clapper strike readily enough without my bothering myself to please my man, much less to obey him! But you're not going away yet, Mrs. Franks?" Persis had risen as if to depart.

"I hope to see you so soon again; you are coming,—at least will you not come and take tea with us this evening? You will not wish to stay all alone."

"Oh! I'll not be alone anyhow," said Nancy, also rising from her seat; "I thought I'd look in on Mrs. Fuddles."

This made Persis press her invitation. "You've never passed an evening with me since my marriage," she said; "I'd take it so kind if you'd come."

"Humph!" said Nancy, doubtfully. An evening at the public-house was more suited to her degraded taste than one at the school-house; but she felt the advantage of being able to say to her neighbors that she had taken tea at Mrs. Franks's.

"I want you to see more of my husband," pleaded Persis.

A suspicion flashed across Nancy that there might be some design to convert her. Suddenly and almost fiercely she asked, "Franks won't be after preaching goodness and that sort of thing?"

"No, he'll not preach," answered Persis, quietly, "but he will practise," she added to herself. "My husband has many amusing sea-stories," said Persis aloud. "Did you ever hear of his crocodile adventure in Madagascar?"

"Well, I'll come; seven is your hour, I think, that you told me."

"Yes, we take our meal later now, as Ned goes after lessons, with his boys, to work in Wild Rose Hollow."

The invitation being accepted, Persis was about to leave the place, when her eye fell on the bottle which Nancy had taken out of the cupboard. The scent which pervaded the room told that its contents must be gin.

"What avails it to keep her from the public-house," thought Persis, "if she has the poison with her at home?" Mrs. Franks's foot was on the threshold, but she suddenly turned and came back; her heart fluttered and her cheek flushed, but her resolution was taken.

"Mrs. Sands," she said rather nervously, "I see that you have a bottle of spirits in the house. Poor Walter Baynes, who is almost sinking, has been ordered strong stimulant by the doctor; it is almost necessary to keep him alive. As you happen to have gin at hand, will you, to do me a favor, let me carry that bottle to him?"

Persis was astonished at the boldness of her own request, and Nancy was scarcely less so.

"He can get it elsewhere," she said sharply.

"I should like so much, so very much, to take it to him now from you. I pass his cottage on my way."

Mrs. Sands put her stout arms a-kimbo, and Persis was alarmed at the savage expression which came over her features as she said, "Don't you think I don't guess what you're after. Some one has been slandering me to you. You think that that bottle is safer in your hands than mine."

Franks's wife, trembling, pressed her baby closer to her heart, but she did not utter any denial of the truth.

"You'd be a-wanting to get me to give up the drink, not just for to-day, but always."

"And if I could do so," said Persis, speaking with agitation, for she was nervous and frightened, "if I could persuade you to give it up for your own sake, your husband's, the father of your poor boy, should I be acting the part of an enemy or of a friend?"

Nancy Sands was silent for some moments, painful moments to Persis. She could not read that woman's heart; she did not venture to glance into her face, or she might have seen in the heart the pang of remorse, in the face the sullenness of shame. Mrs. Sands knew, felt, that she was being drawn into misery and degradation, and that Persis, the gentle, pure-minded wife, was only acting as a guardian angel might act, seeking to save a perishing soul. Anything like stern rebuke Nancy's proud spirit would not have borne; but Persis, trembling while she pleaded, with moisture glistening on her downcast lashes, did not stir up all the fierce wrath and resentment that would in a moment have silenced conscience. Suddenly, half fiercely, Nancy cried, "Take the bottle; I don't care; I can get more; the poor fellow is welcome to the gin."

Persis did not let the opportunity slip. In a minute she had possessed herself of the dangerous bottle, and after stammering thanks, to which Nancy would not listen, Mrs. Franks hurried away from the place.

"Oh, I'm so thankful that visit is over!" she exclaimed half aloud as she passed through the garden gate; "and I shall be thankful when the evening also is over. I hope, oh, I do hope, that she'll come to us sober!"