sparkled and flashed all around him, and bright eyes and ruby lips
invited him to drink. It takes more than ordinary firmness of
principle to abstain in a fashionable company of ladies and
gentlemen, where wine and brandy flow as water. In the case of
Albert Martindale, two things were against him. He was not strong
enough to set himself against any tide of custom, in the first
place; and in the second, he had the allurement of appetite.

I knew all this, when, with my own hand, I wrote on one of our cards
of invitation, "Mr. and Mrs. Martindale and family;" but did not
think of it, until the card was written. As I laid it aside with the
rest, the truth flashed on me and sent a thrill of pain along every
nerve. My heart grew sick and my head faint, as thoughts of the evil
that might come to the son of my friend, in consequence of the
temptation I was about to throw in his way, rushed through my mind.
My first idea was to recall the card, and I lifted it from the table
with a half-formed resolution to destroy it. But a moment's
reflection changed this purpose. I could not give a large
entertainment and leave out my nearest friend and her family.

The pain and wild agitation of that moment were dreadful. I think
all good spirits and angels that could get near my conscious life
strove with me, for the sake of a soul in peril, to hold me back
from taking another step in the way I was going; for it was not yet
too late to abandon the party.

When, after a long struggle with right convictions, I resumed my
work of filling up the cards of invitation, I had such a blinding
headache that I could scarcely see the letters my pen was forming;
and when the task was done, I went to bed, unable to bear up against