"Just in time!" cried the president of the club. "Henry Armour, I bid you welcome! Here's a place waiting for you," placing his hand upon a chair by his side as he spoke. "And now," as Armour seated himself, "let me fill your gla.s.s. We were waiting for a sentiment to find its way out of some brain as you came in, and our br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.ses had stood untasted for more than a minute. Can't you help us to a toast?"

"Here's to good fellowship!" said Armour, promptly lifting his gla.s.s, and touching it to that of the president.

"To be drunk standing," added the president.

All rose on the instant, and drank with mock solemnity to the sentiment of their guest.

Then followed brilliant flashes of wit, or what was thought to be wit. To these succeeded the song, the jest, the story,--and to these again the sparkling wine-cup. Gayly thus pa.s.sed the hours, until midnight stole quietly upon the thoughtless revellers. Surprised, on reference to his watch, to find that it was one o'clock, Armour arose and begged to be excused.

"I move that our guest be excused on one condition," said the friend who had brought him to the company. "And that is, on his promise to meet with us again, on this evening next week."

"What do you think of the condition?" asked the president, who, like nearly all of the rest, was rather the worse for the wine he had taken, looking at Armour as he spoke.

"I agree to it with pleasure," was the prompt reply.

"Another drink before you go, then," said the president, "and I will give the toast. Fill up your gla.s.ses."

The bottle again pa.s.sed round the table.

"Here's to a good fellow!" was the sentiment announced. It was received standing. Armour then retired with bewildered senses. The gay scene that had floated before his eyes, and in which himself had been an actor, and the freedom with which he had taken wine, left him confused, almost in regard to his own ident.i.ty. He did not seem to himself the same person he had been a few hours before. A new world had opened before him, and he had, almost involuntarily, entered into, and become a citizen of that world. Long after he had reached his home, and retired to his bed, did his imagination revel amid the scenes he had just left. In sleep, too, fancy was busy. But here came a change. Serpents would too often glide across the table around which the gay company, himself a member, were a.s.sembled; or some other sudden and more appalling change scatter into fragments the bright phantasma of his dreams.

The sober morning found him in a soberer mood. Calm, cold, unimpa.s.sioned reflection came. What had he been doing? What path had he entered; and whither did it lead? These were questions that would intrude themselves, and clamour for an answer. He shut his eyes and endeavoured again to sleep. Waking thoughts were worse than the airy terrors which had visited him in sleep. At length he arose, with dull pains in his head, and an oppressive sluggishness of the whole body. But more painful than his own reflections, or the physical consequences of the last night's irregularity, was the thought of meeting Blanche, and bearing the glance of her innocent eyes. He felt that he had been among the impure,--and worse, that he had enjoyed their impure sentiments, and indulged with them in excess of wine. The taint was upon him, and the pure mind of his sister must instinctively perceive it. These thoughts made him wretched. He really dreaded to meet her. But this could not be avoided.

"You do not look well, brother," said Blanche, almost as soon as she saw him.

"I am not well," he replied, avoiding her steady look. "My head aches, and I feel dull and heavy."

"What has caused it, brother?" the affectionate girl asked, with a look and voice of real concern.

Now this was, of all others, the question that Henry was least prepared to answer. He could not utter a direct falsehood. From that his firm principles shrunk. Nor could he equivocate, for he considered equivocation little better than a direct falsehood. "Why should I wish to conceal any part of my conduct from her?" he asked himself, in his dilemma. But the answer was instant and conclusive.

His partic.i.p.ation in the revelry of the last night was a thing not to be whispered in her ear. Not being prepared, then, to tell the truth, and shrinking from falsehood and equivocation, Armour preferred silence as the least evil of the three. The question of Blanche was not, therefore, answered. At the breakfast-table, his father and mother remarked upon his appearance. To this, he merely replied that he was not well. As soon as the meal was over, he went out, glad to escape the eye of Blanche, which, it seemed to him, rested searchingly upon him all the while.

A walk of half an hour in the fresh morning air dispelled the dull pain in his head, and restored his whole system to a more healthy tone. This drove away, to some extent, the oppressive feeling of self-condemnation he had indulged. The scenes of the previous evening, though silly enough for sensible young men to engage in, seemed less objectionable than they had appeared to him on his first review. To laugh involuntarily at several remembered jests and stories, the points of which were not exactly the most chaste or reverential, marked the change that a short period had produced in his state of mind. During that day, he did not fall in with any of his wild companions of the last evening, too many of whom had already fairly entered the road to ruin. The evening was spent at home, in the society of Blanche. He read while she sewed, or he turned for her the leaves of her music book, or accompanied her upon the flute while she played him a favourite air upon the piano.

Conversation upon books, music, society, and other topics of interest, filled up the time not occupied in these mental recreations, and added zest, variety, and unflagging interest to the gently-pa.s.sing hours. On the next evening they attended a concert, and on the next a party. On that succeeding, Henry went out to see a friend of a different character from any of those with whom he had pa.s.sed the hours a few nights previous--a friend about his own age, of fixed habits and principles, who, like himself, was preparing for the bar. With him he spent a more rational evening than with the others, and, what was better, no sting was left behind.

Still, young Armour could never think of the "club" without having his mind thrown into a tumult. It awoke into activity opposing principles. Good and evil came in contact, and battled for supremacy. There was in his mind a clear conviction that to indulge in dissipation of that character, would be injurious both to moral and physical health. And yet, having tasted of the delusive sweets, he was tempted to further indulgence. Meeting with some two or three of the "members" during the week, and listening to their extravagant praise of the "club," and the pleasure of uniting in unrestrained social intercourse, made warm by generous wine, tended to make more active the contest going on within--for the good principles that had been stored up in his mind were not to be easily silenced. Their hold upon his character was deep. They had entered into its warp and woof, and were not to be eradicated or silenced in a moment. As the time for the 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.e.x, 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 ap.r.o.n-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.

She had been like an angel of innocence about his path from early years. He knew her to be as pure as the mountain snow-flake. And yet that sister's influence over him was sneered at by one who had just uttered a foul-mouthed slander upon her whole s.e.x. The scales fell instantly from his eyes. He saw the dangerous ground upon, which he stood; while the character of his a.s.sociates appeared in a new light. They were on a road that he did not wish to travel. There were serpents concealed amid the flowers that sprung along their path, and he shuddered as he thought of their poisonous fangs. Quick as a flash of light, these things pa.s.sed through his mind, and caused him to act with instant resolution. Rising from the chair he had already taken, he retired, without a word, from the room. A sneering laugh followed him, but he either heard it not or gave it no heed.

The book which Blanche resumed after she had heard her brother go out, soon ceased to interest her. She was too much troubled about him to be able to fix her mind on any thing else. His singularly disturbed state, and the fact of his having left the house at that late hour, caused her to feel great uneasiness. This was beginning to excite her imagination, and to cause her to fancy many reasons for his strange conduct, none of which were calculated in any degree to allay the anxiety she felt. Anxiety was fast verging upon serious alarm, when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching the house.

She listened breathlessly. Surely it was the sound of Henry's footsteps! Yes! Yes! It was indeed her brother. The tears gushed from her eyes as she heard him enter below and pa.s.s up to his chamber. He was safe from harm, and for this her heart lifted itself up in fervent thankfulness! How near he had been to falling, that pure-minded maiden never knew, nor how it had been her image and the remembrance of her parting kiss that had saved him in the moment of his greatest danger. Happy he who is blest with such a sister! And happier still, if her innocence be suffered to overshadow him in the hours of temptation!

THE HOME OF TASTE.

THERE are three words, in the utterance of which more power over the feelings is gained than in the utterance of any other words in the language. These are "Mother," "Home," and "Heaven." Each appeals to a different emotion--each bears influence over the heart from the cradle to the grave.--And just in the degree that this influence is active, are man's best interests secured for time and eternity.

Only of "home" do we here intend to speak; and, in particular, as to the influence of the home of taste. We hear much, in these days, of enlarging the sphere of woman's social duties; as if, in the sphere of home, nothing remained to be done, and she must either fold her hands in idleness, or step forth to engage with man in life's sterner conflicts. But it is not true that our homes are as they might be, if their presiding genius fully comprehended all that was needed to make home what the word implies. Among those in poorer circ.u.mstances, this is especially so. They are too apt to regard matters of taste as mere superfluities; to speak lightly of order, neatness, and ornament; to think time and money spent on such things as useless. But this is a serious mistake, involving, often, the most lamentable consequences.

If we expect our children to grow up with a love for things pure and orderly, we must surround them with the representations thereof in the homes where first impressions are formed. The mind rests upon and is moulded by things external to a far greater extent than many suppose. These are not only a mirror, reflecting all that pa.s.ses before the surface, but a highly sensitive mirror, that, like the Daguerreotype plate, retains the image it receives. If the image be orderly and beautiful, it will ever have power to excite orderly and beautiful thoughts in the mind; but if it be impure and disorderly, its lasting influence will be debasing. If you meet with a coa.r.s.e, vulgar-minded man or woman, and are able to trace back the thread of life until the period of early years, you will be sure to find the existence of coa.r.s.e and vulgar influences; and, in most cases, the opposite will alike be found to hold good.

There is no excuse for disorder in a household, no matter how small or how low the range of income, but idleness or indifference. The time required to maintain neatness, order, and cleanliness, is small, if the will is active and the hands prompt. Every home, even the poorest, may become a home of taste, and present order and forms of beauty, if there is only a willing purpose in the mind.

It is often charged upon men--particularly operatives with low wages--that they do not love their homes, preferring to spend their evening hours in bar-rooms, or wandering about with other men as little attracted by the household sphere as themselves, until the time for rest. If you were to go into the homes of such, in most cases, you would hardly wonder at the aversion manifested. The dirty, disordered rooms, which their toiling wives deem it a waste of time and labour to make tidy and comfortable for their reception, it would be a perversion to call homes. Home attracts; but these repel. And so, with a feeling of discomfort, the men wander away, fall into temptation, and usually spend, in self-indulgence, money that otherwise would have gone to increase home comforts, if there had been any to increase. And so it is, in its degree, in the homes of every cla.s.s. The more pleasant, orderly, and tasteful home is made, in all its departments and a.s.sociations, the stronger is its attractive power, and the more potent its influence over those who are required to go forth into the world and meet its thousand allurements. If every thing is right there, it will surely draw them back, with a steady retraction, through all their absent moments, and they will feel, on repa.s.sing the threshold, that, in the wide, wide world, there is no spot to them so full of blessings.

What true woman does not aspire to be the genius of such a home?

THE TWO SYSTEMS.

"IT'S no use to talk; I can't do it. The idea of punishing a child in cold blood makes me shiver all over. I certainly think that, in the mind of any one who can do it, there must be a latent vein of cruelty."

This remark was made by Mrs. Stanley to her friend and visiter Mrs.

Noland.

"I have known parents," she continued, "who would go about executing some punishment with a coolness and deliberation that to me was frightful. No promise, no appeal, no tear of alarm or agony, from the penitent little culprit, would have the least effect. The law must be fulfilled even to the jot and t.i.ttle."

"The disobedient child, doubtless, knew the law," remarked Mrs.

Noland.

"Perhaps so. But even if it did, great allowance ought to be made for the ardor with which children seek the gratification of their desires, and the readiness with which they forget."

"No parent should lay down a law not right in itself; nor one obedience to which was not good for the child."