The Reformed Husband.

We entered one day a cottage in the suburbs of Cork; a young woman was knitting stockings at the door. It was neat and comfortable as any in the most presperous district of England. We tell her brief story in her own words, as nearly as we can recall them; ‘My husband is a wheelwright, and always earned his guinea a week; he was a good workman, but the love for the drink was strong in him, and it wasn't often he brought me home more than 5s, out of his one-pound-one on a Saturday night, and it broke my heart to see the children too ragged to be sent to school, to say nothing of the starved look they had, out of the little I could give them. Well, God be praised, he took the pledge, and the next Saturday he laid twenty-one shillings upon the chair you sit upon. O! didn't I give thanks upon my bended knees that night. Still I was tearful it wouldn't last, and I spent no more than 5s. as I used to, saying to myself, May be the money will be more wanted than it is now! Well the next week he brought me home the same, and the next, and the next, until eight weeks had passed; and, glory to God! there was no change for the bad in my husband; and all the while he never asked me why there was nothing better for him out of his earnings; so I felt there was no fear for him, and the ninth week, when he came home to me I had this table bought, and these six chairs, one for myself, four for the children, and one for himself; and I was dressed in a new gown, and the children all had new clothes, and shoes, and stockings, and upon his chair I put a bran new suit, and upon his plate I put the bill and receipt for them all, just the eight sixteen shillings, the cost that I'd saved out of his wages, not knowing what might happen, and that always went for drink. And he cried like a baby, but it was with thanks to God; and now where's the healthier man than my husband in the whole county of Cork, or a happier wife than myself or decenter or better fed children than my own?'

—Mrs. Hall's Ireland.