erty. She might have provided well for herself and child had they been alone, by her own industry; but words are needless to explain here what is so well known to every drunkard's family.
At times the miserable man experienced all the horrors of a drunkard's remorse; when her feelings of mingled pity and affection banished every other thought. His career was fast drawing to a close, and ended in delirium tremens when Amelia was twelve years old. One of the horrid phantoms of his diseased imagination was that of his little boy whose death he had caused, chasing him with a club, and cursing him with the most fearful oaths. In a comparatively lucid interval, a by-stander, thinking to comfort him said, "Your son is an angel now, interceding for you in the name of a holy Savior's love," but he was quickly interrupted by the raving maniac, who, starting up with glaring eyeballs and convulsive gestures, exclaimed at the top of his voice, "Hush all your deceitful wiles about a Savior and his love and angels, I tell you there's no such thing, nothing but the seven hells of the bottomless pit where we shall all go," followed by such curses and imprecations as would congeal the stoniest heart.
This death-bed scene haunted Amelia for years after, in dreams and in her waking hours, giving her passive nature its first quickening impulse and an unfavorable one too. Its effect on her mother was still more disastrous. The reaction consequent on being so suddenly relieved from all fear and anxiety, and the time now left for reflection, soon produced a melancholy state of mind.
