may kindle into a consuming flame."

She panted as she spoke with hurried utterance. "My father!"
exclaimed the young man, with an indignant flash in his eyes.

"No, no, no! I don't mean that. But there is a curse that descends
to the third and fourth generation," replied Mrs. Whitford, "and you
have the legacy of that curse. But it will be harmless unless with
your own hand you drag it down, and this is why I ask you to abstain
from wine. Others may be safe, but for you there is peril."

"A scarecrow, a mere fancy, a figment of some fanatic's brain;" and
Ellis Whitford rejected the idea in a voice full of contempt.

But the pallor and solemnity of his mother's face warned him that
such a treatment of her fears could not allay them. Moreover, the
hint of ancestral disgrace had shocked his family pride.

"A sad and painful truth," Mrs. Whitford returned, "and one that it
will be folly for you to ignore. You do not stand in the same
freedom in which many others stand. That is your misfortune. But you
can no more disregard the fact than can one born with a hereditary
taint of consumption in his blood disregard the loss of health and
hope to escape the fatal consequences. There is for every one of us
'a sin that doth easily beset,' a hereditary inclination that must
be guarded and denied, or it will grow and strengthen until it
becomes a giant to enslave us. Where your danger lies I have said;
and if you would be safe, set bars and bolts to the door of
appetite, and suffer not your enemy to cross the threshold, of
life."