“Did she say that, sister?”

“Yes, those were her very words.”

“And you did warn me, faithfully.”

“Yes.  But the task is one I pray that I may never again have to perform.”

“Amen,” was the fervent response.

“How do you like Helen?” the young man asked, in a livelier tone, after a silence of nearly a minute.

“I have always been attached to her, John.  You know that we have been together since we were little girls, until now we seem almost like sisters.”

“And a sister, truly, I hope she may one day become,” the brother said, with a meaning smile.

“Most affectionately will I receive her as such,” was the reply of Alice.  “Than Helen Weston, there is no one whom I had rather see the wife of my dear brother.”

As she said this, she drew her arm around his neck, and kissed him affectionately.

“It shall not be my fault, then, Alice, if she do not become your sister—­” was the brother’s response.

Rigidly true to his pledge, John Barclay soon gained the honourable estimation in the social circle through which he moved, that he had held, before wine, the mocker, had seduced him from the ways of true sobriety, and caused even his best friends to regard him with changed feelings.  Possessing a competence, which a father’s patient industry had accumulated, he had not, hitherto, thought of entering upon any business.  Now, however, he began to see the propriety of doing so, and as he had plenty of capital, he proposed to a young man of industrious habits and thorough knowledge of business to enter into a co-partnership with him.  This offer was accepted, and the two young men commenced the world with the fairest prospects.

Three months from the day on which John Barclay had mentioned to his sister that he entertained a regard for Helen Weston, he made proposals of marriage to that young lady, which were accepted.

“But how in regard to his pledge?” I hear some one ask.

O, as to that, it was kept, rigidly.  Nothing that could intoxicate was allowed to touch his lips.  Of course, he was at first frequently asked to drink by his associates, but his reply to all importunities was—­

“No—­I have sworn off for six months.”

“So you have said for the last six months,” remarked young man, named Watson, one day, on his refusing for the twentieth time to drink with him.

“Not for six months, Watson.  It is only three months this very day since I swore off.”

“Well, it seems to me like six months, anyhow.  But do you think that you feel any better for all this total-abstinence?”

“O as to that, I don’t know that I feel such a wonderful difference in body; but in mind I certainly do feel a great deal better.”

“How so?”

“While I drank, I was conscious that I was beginning to be too fond of drinking, and was too often painfully conscious that I had taken too much.  Now, I am, of course, relieved from all such unpleasant feelings.”