temptations before its young men--the seed, as some one has forcibly
said, of the nation's future harvest."

"Society doesn't care much for anything but its own gratification,"
replied Dr. Hillhouse, "and says as plainly as actions can do it
'After me the deluge.'"

"Rather hard on society," remarked Mr. Elliott.

"Now take, for instance, its drinking customs, its toleration and
participation in the freest public and private dispensation of
intoxicating liquors to all classes, weak or strong, young or old.
Is there not danger in this--great danger? I think I understand you,
Mrs. Whitford."

"Yes, doctor, you understand me;" and dropping her voice to a lower
tone, Mrs. Whitford added: "There are wives and mothers and sisters
not a few here to-night whose hearts, though they may wear smiles on
their faces, are ill at ease, and some of them will go home from
these festivities sadder than when they came."

"Right about that," said the doctor to himself as he turned away, a
friend of Mrs. Whitford's having come up at the moment and
interrupted the conversation--" right about that; and you, I greatly
fear, will be one of the number."

"Our friend isn't just herself to-night," remarked Mr. Elliott as he
and Dr. Hillhouse moved across the room. "A little dyspeptic, maybe,
and so inclined to look on the dark side of things. She has little
cause, I should think, to be anxious for her own son or husband. I