drinking-saloons crowd its busy streets. They may hold out their
enticements for him in vain. But he is too weak to refuse the
tempting glass when a fair hostess offers it, or when, in the midst
of a gay company wine is in every hand and at every lip. One glass
taken, and caution and restraint are too often forgotten. He drinks
with this one and that one, until his clear head is gone and
appetite, like a watchful spider, throws another cord of its fatal
web around him."

"I don't see what we are to do about it," said Mr. Birtwell. "If men
can't control themselves--" He did not finish the sentence.

"We can at least refrain from putting temptation in their way,"
answered his wife.

"How?"

"We can refuse to turn our houses into drinking-saloons," replied
Mrs. Birtwell, voice and manner becoming excited and intense.

"Margaret, Margaret, you are losing yourself," said the astonished
husband.

"No; I speak the words of truth and soberness," she answered, her
face rising in color and her eyes brightening. "What great
difference is there between a drinking-saloon, where liquor is sold,
and a gentleman's dining-room, where it is given away? The harm is
great in both--greatest, I fear, in the latter, where the weak and
unguarded are allured and their tastes corrupted. There is a ban on
the drinking-saloon. Society warns young men not to enter its