Tom looked at the earnest face of the pleading girl, hesitated awhile, as his lip quivered and the big tears filled his eyes, and then suddenly lifting the bottle high above his head, he dashed it down on the pavement, and as it broke into a thousand pieces, he said: 

“I’ll trust you, I’ll trust you, lead me to the King!”

And lead him she did, as always a King’s Daughter will lead one who sorely needs help.  His chains were broken, and at twenty-nine years of age Tom began life over again.  He is not the man he might have been, but no one doubts his loyalty to the King.  His place in the prayer circle is never vacant, and you can always find, him in the ranks of those whose sworn purpose it is to slay Tom’s old master, King Alcohol!

STEVEN LAWRENCE, AMERICAN.

By Barbara Yechton.

Stevie’s papa usually wrote his name in the hotel registers as “Edward H. Lawrence, New York City, U. S. A.,” but Stevie always entered his—­and he wouldn’t have missed doing it for anything—­as “Steven Lawrence, American.”

When Kate and Eva teased him about it, he would say:  “Why, anybody could come from New York—­an Englishman or a German or a Frenchman—­without being born there, don’t you see? but I’m a real out-and-out American, born there, and a citizen and everything, and I just want all these foreigners to know it, ’cause I think America’s the greatest country in the world.”  Then the little boy would straighten his slender figure and toss back his curly hair with a great air of pride, which highly amused his two sisters.  But their teasing and laughter did not trouble Stevie in the least.  “Laugh all you like I don’t care,” he retorted, one day.  “It’s my way, and I like it,” which amused the little girls all the more, for, as Eva said, “Everybody knew Stevie liked his own way, only he never had owned up to it before.”

There was something, however, that did trouble the little boy a good deal:  though he was born in New York City, he had no recollection of it or any other place in America, as his mamma’s health had failed, and the whole family had gone to Europe for her benefit, when Stevie was little more than a year old.  They had traveled about a good deal in the eight years since then, and Stevie had lived in some famous and beautiful old cities; but in his estimation no place was equal to his beloved America, of which Mehitabel Higginson had told him so much, and to which he longed to get back.  I fancy that most American boys and girls would have enjoyed being where Stevie was at this time, for he and his papa and mamma, and Kate and Eva, and Mehitabel Higginson, were living in a large and quite grand-looking house in Venice.  The entrance hall and the wide staircase leading to the next story were very imposing, the rooms were large, and the walls and high ceilings covered with elaborate carvings and frescoes; and when Stevie looked out of the windows or the front door lo! instead of an ordinary street with paved sidewalks, there were the blue shining waters of the lagoon, and quaint-shaped gondolas floating at the door-step or gliding swiftly and gracefully by.