“Have something to drink?” inquired the landlord.

“I’ll take a glass of water, if you please.”

Jenks could not hide the indifference at once felt towards the stranger.  Very deliberately he set a pitcher and a glass upon the counter, and then turned partly away.  The stranger poured out a tumbler of water, and drank it off with an air of satisfaction.

“Good water, that of yours, landlord,” said he.

“Is it?” was returned, somewhat uncourteously.

“I call it good water—­don’t you?”

“Never drink water by itself.”  As Jenks said this, he winked to one of his good customers, who was lounging, in the bar.  “In fact, it’s so long since I drank any water, that I forgot how it tastes.  Don’t you, Leslie?”

The man, to whom this was addressed, was not so far lost to shame as Jenks.  He blushed and looked confused, as he replied,—­

“It might be better for some of us if we had not lost our relish for pure water.”

“A true word spoken, my friend!” said the stranger, turning to the man, whose swollen visage, and patched, threadbare garments, too plainly told the story of his sad life. “’Water, pure water, bright water;’ that is my motto.  It never swells the face, nor inflames the eyes, nor mars the countenance.  Its attendants are health, thrift, and happiness.  It takes not away the children’s bread, nor the toiling wife’s garments.  Water!—­it is one of God’s chiefest blessings!  Our friend, the landlord here, says he has forgotten how it tastes; and you have lost all relish for the refreshing draught!  Ah, this is a sad confession!—­one which the angels might weep to hear!”

There were two or three customers in the bar besides Leslie, to whom this was addressed; and all of them, in spite of the landlord’s angry and sneering countenance, treated the stranger with attention and respect.  Seeing this, Jenks could not restrain himself; so, coming from behind his bar, he advanced to his side, and, laying his hand quite rudely on his shoulder, said, in a peremptory manner,—­

“See here, my friend!  If you are about making a temperance lecture, you can adjourn to the Town Hall or the Methodist Chapel.”

The stranger moved aside a pace or two, so that the hand of Jenks might fall from his person, and then said, mildly,—­

“There must be something wrong here if a man may not speak in praise of water without giving offense.”

“I said you could adjourn your lecture!” The landlord’s face was now fiery red, and he spoke with insolence and passion.

“O, well, as you are president of the meeting, I suppose we must let you exercise an arbitrary power of adjournment,” said the stranger, good-humoredly.  “I didn’t think any one had so strong a dislike for water as to consider its praise an insult.”

At this moment a child stepped into the bar-room.  Her little face was flushed, and great beads of perspiration were slowly moving down her crimson cheeks.  Her step was elastic, her manner earnest, and her large, dark eyes bright with an eager purpose.  She glanced neither to the right nor the left, but walking up to the landlord, lifted to him her sweet young face, and said, in tones that thrilled every heart but his,—­