"Oh Belle do stop, what a train of horrors you can conjure out of an
innocent glass of wine."

"Anything can be innocent that sparkles to betray, that charms at first,
but later will bite like an adder and sting like a serpent."

"Really! Belle, if you keep on at this rate you will be a monomaniac on
the temperance question. However I do not think Mr. Romaine will feel
highly complimented to know that you refused him because you dreaded he
might become a drunkard. You surely did not tell him so."

"Yes I did, and I do not think that I would have been a true friend to
him, had I not done so."

"Oh! Belle, I never could have had the courage to have told him so."

"Why not?"

"I would have dreaded hurting his feelings. Were you not afraid of
offending him?"

"I certainly shrank from the pain which I knew I must inflict, but
because I valued his welfare more than my own feelings, I was
constrained to be faithful to him. I told him that he was drifting where
he ought steer, that instead of holding the helm and rudder of his
young life, he was floating down the stream, and unless he stood firmly
on the side of temperance, that I never would clasp hands will him for
life."