So the interview ended, and mother and son went to the grand entertainment at Mr. Birtwell’s.  Ellis did mean to heed his mother’s admonition.  What she had said, about the danger in which he stood had made a deeper impression on him than Mrs. Whitford thought.  But he did not propose to heed by abstinence, but by moderation.  He would be on guard and always ready for the hidden foe, if such a foe really existed anywhere but in his mother’s fancy.

“Ah, Mrs. Whitford!  Glad to see you this evening;” and the Rev. Mr. Brantley Elliott gave the lady a graceful and cordial bow.  “Had the pleasure of meeting your son a few moments ago—­a splendid young man, if you will pardon me for saying so.  How much a year has improved him!”

Mrs. Whitford bowed her grateful acknowledgment.

“Just been admitted to the bar, I learn,” said Mr. Elliott.

“Yes, sir.  He has taken his start in life.”

“And will make his mark, or I am mistaken.  You have reason to feel proud of him, ma’am.”

“That she has,” spoke out Dr. Hillhouse, who came up at the moment.  “When so many of our young men are content to be idle drones—­to let their fathers achieve eminence or move the world by the force of thought and will—­it is gratifying to see one of their number taking his place in the ranks and setting his face toward conquest.  When the sons of two-thirds of our rich men are forgotten, or remembered only as idlers or nobodies, or worse, your son will stand among the men who leave their mark upon the generations.”

“If he escapes the dangers that lie too thickly in the way of all young men,” returned Mrs. Whitford, speaking almost involuntarily of what was in her heart, and in a voice that betrayed more concern than she had meant to express.

The doctor gave a little shrug, but replied: 

“His earnest purpose in life will be his protection, Mrs. Whitford.  Work, ambition, devotion to a science or profession have in them an aegis of safety.  The weak and the idle are most in danger.”

“It is wrong, I have sometimes thought,” said Mrs. Whitford speaking both to the physician and the clergyman, “for society to set so many temptations before its young men—­the seed, as some one has forcibly said, of the nation’s future harvest.”

“Society doesn’t care much for anything but its own gratification,” replied Dr. Hillhouse, “and says as plainly as actions can do it ‘After me the deluge.’”

“Rather hard on society,” remarked Mr. Elliott.

“Now take, for instance, its drinking customs, its toleration and participation in the freest public and private dispensation of intoxicating liquors to all classes, weak or strong, young or old.  Is there not danger in this—­great danger?  I think I understand you, Mrs. Whitford.”

“Yes, doctor, you understand me;” and dropping her voice to a lower tone, Mrs. Whitford added:  “There are wives and mothers and sisters not a few here to-night whose hearts, though they may wear smiles on their faces, are ill at ease, and some of them will go home from these festivities sadder than when they came.”