“When are we going to have our party?” asked Mr. Birtwell of his wife as they sat alone one evening.  He saw her countenance change.  After a few moments she replied in a low but very firm and decided voice: 

“Whenever we can have it without wine.”

“Then we’ll never have it,” exclaimed Mr. Birtwell, in considerable excitement.

“It will be better so,” returned his wife, “than again to lay stumbling-blocks at the feet of our neighbors.”

There came a sad undertone in her voice that her husband did not fail to perceive.

“We don’t agree in this thing,” said Mr. Birtwell, with some irritation of manner.

“Then will it not be best to let the party go over until we can agree?  No harm can come of that, and harm might come, as it did last year, from turning our house into a drinking-saloon.”

The sting of these closing words was sharp.  It was not the first time Mr. Birtwell had heard his wife use them, and they never failed to shock his fine sense of respectability.

“For Heaven’s sake, Margaret,” he broke out, in a passion he could not control, “don’t say that again!  It’s an outrage.  You’ll give mortal offence if you use such language.”

“It is best to call things by their right names,” replied Mrs. Birtwell, in no way disturbed by her husband’s weak anger.  “As names signify qualities, we should be very careful how we deceive others by the use of wrong ones.  To call a lion a lamb might betray a blind or careless person into the jaws of a ferocious monster, or to speak of the fruit of the deadly nightshade as a cherry might deceive a child into eating it.”

“You are incorrigible,” said Mr. Birtwell, his anger subsiding.  It never went very deep, for his nature was shallow.

“No, not incorrigible, but right,” returned Mrs. Birtwell.

“Then we are not to have a party this winter?”

“I did not say so.  On the contrary, I am ready to entertain our friends, but the party I give must be one in which no wine or brandy is served.”

“Preposterous!” ejaculated Mr. Birtwell.  “We’d make ourselves the laughing-stock of the city.”

“Perhaps not,” returned his wife.

Mr. Birtwell shook his head and shut his mouth tightly: 

“There’s no use in talking about it if the thing can’t be done right, it can’t be done at all.”

“So say I. Still, I would do it right and show society a better way if you were brave enough to stand by my side.  But as you are not, our party must go by default this winter.”

Mrs. Birtwell smiled faintly to soften the rebuke of her words.  They had reached this point in their conversation when Mr. Elliott, their clergyman, called.  His interest in the Home for inebriates had increased instead of abating, and he now held the place of an active member in the board of directors.  Mrs. Birtwell had, months before, given in her adhesion to the cause of reform, and the board of lady managers, who had a close supervision of the internal arrangements of the Home, had few more efficient workers.