The lady paused, when her companion said: 

“Look!  Blanche Birtwell is trying to quiet him.  Did you know they were engaged?”

“What!”

“Engaged.”

“Then I pity her from my heart.  A young man who hasn’t self-control enough to keep himself sober at an evening party can’t be called a very promising subject for a husband.”

“She has placed her arm in his and is looking up into his face so sweetly.  What a lovely girl she is!  There! he’s quieter already; and see, she is drawing him out of the group of young men and talking to him in such a bright, animated way.”

“Poor child! it makes my eyes wet; and this is her first humiliating and painful duty toward her future husband.  God pity and strengthen her is my heartfelt prayer.  She will have need, I fear, of more than human help and comfort.”

“You take the worst for granted?”

The lady drew a deep sigh: 

“I fear the worst, and know something of what the worst means.  There are few families of any note in our city,” she added, after a slight pause, “in which sorrow has not entered through the door of intemperance.  Ah! is not the name of the evil that comes in through this door Legion? and we throw it wide open and invite both young and old to enter.  We draw them by various allurements.  We make the way of this door broad and smooth and flowery, full of pleasantness and enticement.  We hold out our hands, we smile with encouragement, we step inside of the door to show them the way.”

In her ardor the lady half forgot herself, and stopped suddenly as she observed that two or three of the company who stood near had been listening.

Meantime, Blanche Birtwell had managed to get Whitford away from the table, and was trying to induce him to leave the supper-room.  She hung on his arm and talked to him in a light, gay manner, as though wholly unconscious of his condition.  They had reached the door leading into the hall, when Whitford stopped, and drawing back, said: 

“Oh, there’s Fred Lovering, my old college friend.  I didn’t know he was in the city.”  Then he called out, in a voice so loud as to cause many to turn and look at him, “Fred!  Fred!  Why, how are you, old boy?  This is an unexpected pleasure.”

The young man thus spoken to made his way through the crowd of guests, who were closely packed together in that part of the room, some going in and some trying to get out, and grasping the hand of Whitford, shook it with great cordiality.

“Miss Birtwell,” said the latter, introducing Blanche.  “But you know each other, I see.”

“Oh yes, we are old friends.  Glad to see you looking so well, Miss Birtwell.”

Blanche bowed with cold politeness, drawing a little back as she did so, and tightening her hold on Whitford’s arm.

Lovering fixed his eyes on the young lady with an admiring glance, gazing into her face so intently that her color heightened.  She turned partly away, an expression of annoyance on her countenance, drawing more firmly on the arm of her companion as she did so, and taking a step toward the door.  But Whitford was no longer passive to her will.