CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY Come time, and teach me, many years, I do not suffer in a dream; For now so strange do these things seem, TENNYSON. Twas in the spring of eighteen hundred and thirtythat I first saw Mary Lister. To that time I look back with fondest remembrance, for such was my happy lot that a warm and lasting friendship was formed between us. Our meeting was casual, at a social gathering for a philanthropic object, in which we had each agreed to take a part at the request of its promoters. But the result of that introduction to each other has been fraught with such great benefits, at least to myself, that I cannot look back to it without thanking Providence for making it a link in the chain of events that have formed the simple annals of my life since then. For to know Mary Lister, and to know her intimately, was to love her for ever. To be blessed with her friendship was to become possessed of a treasure of rarest value, of which no earthly changes A could deprive me. I do not speak of her as perfect, though she came nearer my standard of perfection than I ever thought it possible any human being could. Perhaps there might have been faults visible to others, which were no faults to me, through the love I bore her. Yet it is a rare thing to pass through life so little blamed, so greatly praised by all, as Mary did. Especially when the life has been one of great and peculiar trial; the kind of trial which tests the endurance and patience, and tries the very foundation of character. And such a life, for many years, was Mary Lister's. Reviewing, as I do now, a considerable portion of my life spent in almost unbroken intercourse with so good and dear a friend, it seems to me that a renewal of the scenes she passed through, some remembrances of her gentleness, fortitude and constancy, will be a happy employment of my own mind, and a not uninteresting or useless study, so far as the subject of it is concerned, to any who may be induced to peruse my unpretending record. It will be necessary, and perhaps advantageous, to mingle other persons and incidents with my reminiscences of Mary, and the events of her life; but these will be such only as were in some way connected with her, as the chief personage of my story. There is nothing that gives people a deeper interest in each other than having a common cause of sorrow; particularly if the sorrow be of such a nature that only they who have experienced its bitterness can fully sympathise with another under its pressure. Such a bond of union there was between Mary and myself. We were both sufferers from the same calamity; from the workings of an agency whose evil and bitter fruits kad brought grief and shame to our homes, and cast a dark shadow over the future, which, to our young hearts, should have been bright with hopes of happiness. When we first knew each other, Mary had indeed only begun to tremble under the influence of this mighty foe. I had writhed in all the agonies inflicted by its terrible power. It had not only degraded one very near and dear to me, but had at last bereaved me of that loved one, and through her ruin and death had pierced the heart of my best earthly friend, and brought him also to the grave. Must I speak more plainly the appalling truth? My mother perished the victim of intemperance. My father, heart-broken by grief on her account, died in the prime of life, and left me, his only child, desolate in the world. Let me recall, very briefly, some of the past scenes of my life. O, my mother! With what anguish do I revive the memory of the few bright years of my childhood, when thou wert to me all that a child might reverence and love! When the lineaments of thy face were fair and gentle, and the soft tones of thy voice were full of tenderness-when I could look up to thee with all the idolatry of infancy, and felt no fear for the future. Ah, that future, darkening even then in the distance, and closing on me at length in gloomy horror! My father, kindest of parents, most loving of husbands, how was thy tenderness repaid! What depths of woe didst thou pass through to the land of peace and bliss where thou now dwellest! Let me trace the small beginnings of the desolating change that came upon our once happy home. My mother had been ill, and when the sickness was past, her strength returned not so rapidly as her fond husband desired. The best medical advice was sought, and a generous regimen was prescribed. My mother's diet. had ever been simple. Highly-seasoned food rarely appeared at our table, and exciting drinks scarcely at all, save when guests were there. It was her happy belief in those days that water was the best drink, and I, especially, was taught to consider it most healthful and suitable. But the physician's dictum was not to be set aside. Wine was ordered, and a certain quantity taken, as a medicine, every day. The rose returned to the loved patient's cheek, and brilliancy to her eye, and my father praised the agent by which his wife's health and beauty seemed for a time restored. was it that the remedy was continued when the necessity for it ceased? Why was the wine kept as an article of daily use by my mother long after her strength Why |