Each
became more and more absorbed, every day, in increasing cares and
duties; yet to one those cares and duties were painful, and to the
other full of delight.
Ten years from the day on which they parted in tears, Ellen sat,
near the close of day, in a meanly furnished room, in one of the
southern cities, watching, with a troubled countenance, the restless
slumber of her husband. Her face was very thin and pale, and it had
a fixed and strongly marked expression of suffering. Two children, a
boy and a girl, the one about six, and the other a little over ten
years of age, were seated listlessly on the floor, which was
uncarpeted. They seemed to have no heart to play. Even the
elasticity of childhood had departed from them. From the appearance
of Thorne, it was plain that he was very sick; and from all the
indications the room in which he lay, afforded, it was plain that
want and suffering were its inmates. The habit of idleness he had
suffered to creep at a slow but steady pace upon him. Idleness
brought intemperance, and intemperance, reacting upon idleness,
completed his ruin, and reduced his family to poverty in its most
appalling form.
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