very hot, and he had been walking rather fast. The scars on his body
burnt and tingled, and he tottered as he raised his hat to the vicar's
wife. She decided without further investigation that he must have been
drinking in public-houses.

"It seems a mercy that poor Mrs. Taylor was taken," she said to her
husband. "She has certainly been spared a great deal. That wretched young
man passed me this afternoon; he was quite intoxicated."

"How very said," said Mr. Dixon. "A little port, my dear?"

"Thank you, Merivale, I will have another glass of sherry. Dr. Burrows is
always scolding me and saying I _must_ take something to keep up my
energy, and this sherry is so weak."

The Dixons were not teetotalers. They regretted it deeply, and blamed the
doctor, who "insisted on some stimulant." However, there was some
consolation in trying to convert the parish to total abstinence, or, as
they curiously called it, temperance. Old women were warned of the sin of
taking a glass of beer for supper; aged laborers were urged to try
Cork-ho, the new temperance drink; an uncouth beverage, styled coffee,
was dispensed at the reading-room. Mr. Dixon preached an eloquent
"temperance" sermon, soon after the above conversation, taking as his
text: _Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees_. In his discourse he showed
that fermented liquor and leaven had much in common, that beer was at the
present day "put away" during Passover by the strict Jews; and in a
moving peroration he urged his dear brethren, "and more especially those
amongst us who are poor in this world's goods," to beware indeed of that
evil leaven which was sapping the manhood of our nation. Mrs. Dixon cried
after church: