um_, and all seeming bent on his destruction. Pliny's
usually pale face was flushed, and his nerves were quivering. How much
he wanted every one of these spiced and flavored dainties only his poor
diseased appetite knew; how thoroughly dangerous every one of them was
to him only his troubled, tempted conscience knew. He heartily loathed
every article of simple unflavored food; he absolutely longed to seize
upon that elegant dish of brandy peaches, and devour every drop of the
liquid to quench his raging thirst. Still he chatted and laughed, and
swallowed cup after cup of coffee, and struggled with his tempter, and
tried to call up and keep before him all his numerous promises to that
one true friend who had stood faithfully beside him through many a
disgraceful downfall.

"What an abstemious young gentleman!" simpered Miss De Witt, as for the
fourth time Pliny briefly and rather savagely declined the officious
waiter's offer of wine custard. "Don't you eat any of these frivolous
and demoralizing articles? Mrs. Hastings, is your son one of the
new-lights? I have really been amused to see how persistently he
declines all the tempting articles of peculiar flavor. _Is_ it a
question of temperance, Mr. Hastings? I'm personally interested in that
subject. I heard your star speaker, Mr. Ryan, hold forth last evening.
Did you hear him, Mr. Hastings?"

"I did not," answered Pliny, laconically, remembering how far removed
from a temperance lecture was the scene in which he had mingled the
evening before. He was spared the trouble of further answer by his
father's next remark.

"It is a remarkable recent conversion if Pliny has become interested in
the temperance question," he said, eyeing him curiously. "I really don't
know but total abstinence is a good idea for weak-minded young men who
can not control themselves."

Pliny flushed to his very forehead, and answered in a sharp cutting tone
of biting sarcasm:

"Elderly gentlemen who seem to be similarly weak ought to set the
example then, sir."

This bitter and pointed reference to his father's portly form, flushed
face, and ever growing fondness for his brandies, was strangely unlike
Pliny's courteous manner, and how it might have ended had not Miss De
Witt suddenly determined on a conquest, I can not say.

"Look, look!" she suddenly exclaimed, clapping her hands in childish
glee. "The first snow-storm of the season. Do see the great flakes! Mr.
Hastings, let me pledge y