e all sources of the greatest pleasure
to the unaccustomed girl, but there is one thing which does not please
her. It is the fact that wine is flowing freely and that all are
partaking of it. She feels that she can never consent to drink. It is
something she has never done in her life. Yet she dares not refuse, for
all the others are drinking, and she knows that to refuse would bring
upon herself the ridicule of all the party.

She hears her companion order a bottle of wine opened. He pours and
offers it, saying, "Just a social glass, it will refresh you." She
looks at him as if to protest, but he returns the gaze and hands her the
fatal glass, and she has not the moral courage to say no.

As they raise their glasses he murmurs softly, "Here's hoping we may be
perfectly happy in each other's love, and that the cup of bliss now
raised to our lips may never spill."

One glass and then another and the brain unaccustomed to wine is
whirling and giddy. The vile wretch sees that his game is won.

He whispers in her ear many soft and foolish lies, tells her that he
loves her, and that if she can return that love, he is hers, and hers
alone, so long as life shall last.

She sits tipped back in one chair, with her feet in another, laughs
loudly at every poor little joke, and responds, in a silly affectionate
manner, to all his words of love, and when he makes proposals to which
she would have scorned to listen at any other time, she not only
listens but gives consent to all, and does not leave the house that
night.

When she awakens next morning, it is in a strange room. Her head whirls,
she gazes abstractedly about her and tries to shake off what seems to
her to be a horrid dream, but she is brought suddenly to realize that it
is no sleeping fancy, but a steam reality, as a low voice by her side
says,

"Did you rest easy, my dear?"

"My God!" she fairly shrieks, as the awful truth bursts upon her, "is it
possible, or am I dreaming?" and she passes her hand wildly across her
face.

"Do not excite yourself, my dear; you are not well. You will feel better
presently."

"Better!" she cries, bursting into tears. "Better!! What is life to me
now that you have robbed me of my virtue? Oh! that I should have sunken
into such depths of sin, and that you, vile man, whom I trusted, should
have led me to it."

She tries to rise, but finds herself too weak and dizzy, and falls back
heavily upon her pillow.

"Lie still, my lov