And so fell George’s last hope;—­nothing before him but a life of toil and drudgery, rendered more bitter by every little smarting vexation and indignity which tyrannical ingenuity could devise.

A very humane jurist once said, The worst use you can put a man to is to hang him.  No; there is another use that a man can be put to that is WORSE!

CHAPTER III

The Husband and Father

Mrs. Shelby had gone on her visit, and Eliza stood in the verandah, rather dejectedly looking after the retreating carriage, when a hand was laid on her shoulder.  She turned, and a bright smile lighted up her fine eyes.

“George, is it you?  How you frightened me!  Well; I am so glad you ’s come!  Missis is gone to spend the afternoon; so come into my little room, and we’ll have the time all to ourselves.”

Saying this, she drew him into a neat little apartment opening on the verandah, where she generally sat at her sewing, within call of her mistress.

“How glad I am!—­why don’t you smile?—­and look at Harry—­how he grows.”  The boy stood shyly regarding his father through his curls, holding close to the skirts of his mother’s dress.  “Isn’t he beautiful?” said Eliza, lifting his long curls and kissing him.

“I wish he’d never been born!” said George, bitterly.  “I wish I’d never been born myself!”

Surprised and frightened, Eliza sat down, leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder, and burst into tears.

“There now, Eliza, it’s too bad for me to make you feel so, poor girl!” said he, fondly; “it’s too bad:  O, how I wish you never had seen me—­you might have been happy!”

“George!  George! how can you talk so?  What dreadful thing has happened, or is going to happen?  I’m sure we’ve been very happy, till lately.”

“So we have, dear,” said George.  Then drawing his child on his knee, he gazed intently on his glorious dark eyes, and passed his hands through his long curls.

“Just like you, Eliza; and you are the handsomest woman I ever saw, and the best one I ever wish to see; but, oh, I wish I’d never seen you, nor you me!”

“O, George, how can you!”

“Yes, Eliza, it’s all misery, misery, misery!  My life is bitter as wormwood; the very life is burning out of me.  I’m a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you down with me, that’s all.  What’s the use of our trying to do anything, trying to know anything, trying to be anything?  What’s the use of living?  I wish I was dead!”

“O, now, dear George, that is really wicked!  I know how you feel about losing your place in the factory, and you have a hard master; but pray be patient, and perhaps something—­”

“Patient!” said he, interrupting her; “haven’t I been patient?  Did I say a word when he came and took me away, for no earthly reason, from the place where everybody was kind to me?  I’d paid him truly every cent of my earnings,—­and they all say I worked well.”