Page:The Poor Rich Man, and the Rich Poor Man.djvu/170

162 him against your will and consent. He was always headstrong—poor Ronald! We lived comfortably in Canada for a while. Oh! what pleasure I took in being saving, and making his pay hold out. An ensign's pay is small, father; and, for a while after Juliet was born, he seemed to feel what it was to be a father, and what he owed to the child God had given him, and it seemed happiness enough for him to be with us. Then I wrote you often, and you know all about that time, father! How soon it passed! Bad people drew him away from me, and bad people and hard drinking hardened his heart; and often and often, when I have gone to meet him in the damp night, wild with fear that something had happened to him, and waited hours and hours, he has come, and—; but, poor Ronald! I can't bear to bring up his sins now! But, oh! my poor little child, how she has suffered for his faults! There were times when the sight of her brought him to a momentary penitence; but he had no true joy in her. I have seen what bitter drops conscience has poured into the sweet fountain of parental love. I have seen him when the tones of innocence and the look of love were cutting reproaches to him. Poor Ronald!"

"I suffered, father, in many ways—when, and where, and how, there is no use in telling now. I found patience a great help, and in the darkest times I could pray for my poor husband. Had he but turned to the right path, I would have welcomed poverty, sickness, hardship of any sort; but