“I am satisfied!” he said, in a low tone, advancing, and taking the old man’s hand.  “You have conquered the vindictive pride of a foolish heart.”

“I know that I grossly insulted you, James”—­Harvey Lane said, coming quickly forward, and offering his hand.  “But would I, could I have done it, if I had been myself?”

“No, Harvey, you could not!  And I was mad and blind that I would not see this”—­Everett replied, grasping the hand of his friend.  “We were both flushed with wine, and that made both of us fools.  Surely, Harvey, we have had warning enough, of the evil of drinking.  Within the last two weeks, it has seriously marred our prospects in life, and now it has brought us out here with the deliberate intent of taking each other’s lives.”

“From this hour, I solemnly declare, that I will never again touch, taste, or handle the accursed thing!” Lane said, with strong emphasis.

“In that resolution I join you,” replied Everett, with a like earnest manner.  “And let this resolution be the sealing bond of our perpetual friendship.”

“Amen!” ejaculated Harvey Lane, solemnly,—­and, “Amen!” responded the old man, fervently, lifting his eyes to Heaven.

SWEARING OFF.

“JOHN,” said a sweet-faced girl, laying her hand familiarly upon the shoulder of a young man who was seated, near a window in deep abstraction of mind.  There was something sad in her voice,—­and her countenance, though, lovely, wore an expression of pain.

“What do you want, sister?” the young man replied, without lifting his eyes from the floor.

“You are not happy, brother.”

To this, there was no reply, and an embarrassing pause of some moments ensued.

“May I speak a word with you, brother?”—­the young girl at length said, with a tone and manner that showed her to be compelling herself to the performance of a painful and repugnant task.

“On what subject, Alice?” the brother asked, looking up with a doubting expression.

This question brought the colour to Alice’s cheeks, and the moisture to her eyes.

“You know what I would say, John,” she at length made out to utter, in a voice that slightly trembled.

“How should I know, sister?”

“You were not yourself last night, John.”

“Alice!”

“Forgive me, brother, for what I now say,” the maiden rejoined.  “It is a painful trial, indeed; and were it not that I loved you so well—­were it not that, besides you, there is no one else in the wide world to whom I can look up, I might shrink from a sister’s duty.  But I feel that it would be wrong for me not to whisper in your ear one warning word—­wrong not to try a sister’s power over you.”

“I will forgive you this time, on one condition,” the brother said, in a tone of rebuke, and with a grave expression of countenance.

“What is that?” asked Alice.