When drunk, how he raged and cursed and swore! Often did she dread that, in his fits of inhuman passion, he would have murdered the baby at her breast; for she had seen him dash their only little boy, a child of eight years old, on the floor, till the blood gushed from his ears; and then the madman threw himself down on the body, and howled for the gallows.

Limmers haunted his door, and he theirs; and it was hers to lie, not sleep, in a cold, forsaken bed, once the bed of peace, affection, and perfect happiness.

Often he struck her; and once when she was pregnant with that very orphan now smiling on her breast, reaching out his wee fingers to touch the flowers on his father's grave.

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