next meeting of the club approached, this battle grew more violent.  The condition into which it had brought him by the arrival of the night on which he had promised again to join his gay friends, the reader has already seen.  He was still unable to decide his course of action.  Inclination prompted him to go; good principles opposed.  “But then I have passed my word that I would go, and my word must be inviolable.”  Here reason came in to the aid of his inclinations, and made in their favour a strong preponderance.

We have seen that, yet undecided, he lingered at home, but in a state of mind strangely different from any in which his sister had ever seen him.  Still debating the question, he lay, half reclined upon the sofa, when Blanche touched her innocent lips to his, and murmured a tender good-night.  That kiss passed through his frame like an electric current.  It came just as his imagination had pictured an impure image, and scattered it instantly.  But no decision of the question had yet been made, and the withdrawal of Blanche only took off an external restraint from his feelings.  He quietly arose and commenced pacing the floor.  This he continued for some time.  At last the decision was made.

“I have passed my word, and that ends it,” said he, and instantly left the house.  Without permitting himself to review the matter again, although a voice within asked loudly to be heard, he walked hastily in the direction of the club-room.  In ten minutes he gained the door, opened it without pausing, and stood in the midst of the wild company within.  His entrance was greeted with shouts of welcome, and the toast, “Here’s to a good fellow!” with which he had parted from them, was repeated on his return, all standing as it was drunk.

To this followed a sentiment that cannot be repeated here.  It was too gross.  All drunk to it but Armour.  He could not, for it involved a foul slander upon the other sex, and he had a sister whose pure kiss was yet warm upon his lips.  The individual who proposed the toast marked this omission, and pointed it out by saying—­

“What’s the matter, Harry?  Is not the wine good?”

The colour mounted to the young man’s face as he replied, with a forced smile—­

“Yes, much better than the sentiment.”

“What ails the sentiment?” asked the propounder of it, in a tone of affected surprise.

“I have a sister,” was the brief, firm reply of Armour.

“So Charley, here, was just saying,” retorted the other, with a merry laugh; “and, what is more, that he’d bet a sixpence you were tied to her apron-string, and would not be here to-night!  Ha! ha!”

The effect of this upon the mind of Armour was decisive.  He loved, nay, almost revered his sister.