The Lights and Shadows of Real Life Part 24

"Since then, Alice," he said, after a pause, "I have taken a solemn oath, administered by an Alderman, not to touch any kind of intoxicating drink for six months."

"O, I am so glad, John!" the sister said, a joyful smile lighting up her beautiful young face. "But why did you say six months? Why not for life?"

"Because, Alice, I do not wish to bind myself down to a kind of perpetual slavery. I wish to be free, and act right in freedom from a true principle of right. Six months of entire abstinence from all kinds of liquor will destroy that appet.i.te for it which has caused me, of late, to seek it far too often. And then I will, as a free man, remain free."

"I shall now be so happy again, John!" Alice said, fully satisfied with her brother's reason.

"So you have not been happy then of late?"

"O, no, brother. Far from it."

"And has the fact of my using wine so freely been the cause of your unhappiness?"

"Solely."

"Its effects upon me have not been so visible as often to attract your attention, Alice?"

"O, yes, they have. Scarcely a day has gone by for three or four months past, that I could not see that your mind was obscured, and often your actions sensibly affected."

"I did not dream that it was so, Alice.'

"Are you not sensible, that at Mr. Weston's, last night you were by no means yourself?"

"Yes, Alice, I am sensible of that, and deeply has it mortified me.

I was suffering acutely from the recollection of the exposure which I made of myself on that occasion, especially before Helen, when you alluded to the subject. That was the reason that I could not bear your allusion to it. But tell me, Alice, did you perceive that my situation attracted Helen's attention particularly?"

"Yes. She noticed, evidently, that you were not as you ought to have been."

"How did it affect her, Alice?" asked the young man.

"She seemed much pained, and, I thought, mortified."

"Mortified?"

"Yes."

A pause of some moments ensued, when Barclay asked, in a tone of interest,

"Do you think it has prejudiced her against me?"

"It has evidently pained her very much, but I do not think that it has created in her mind any prejudice against you."

"From what do you infer this, Alice?"

"From the fact, that, while we were alone in her chamber, on my going up stairs to put on my bonnet and shawl, she said to me, and her eyes were moist as well as my own, 'Alice, you ought to speak to your brother, and caution him against this free indulgence in wine; it may grow on him, unawares. If he were as near to me as he is to you, I should not feel that my conscience was clear unless I warned him of his danger.'"

"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 acc.u.mulated, 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-partners.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociates, 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."

"Well, that's something, at least. But I never saw you out of the way."

"Do you know the reason; Watson?"

"No."

"I'll tell you. You were always too far gone yourself, when we drank freely together, to perceive my condition."

"So you say."