t has
quite a good, rich, solid old air."

"Well, John, to say the truth, why do we never have any wine? I don't
care for it,--I never drink it; but the decanters, and the different
colored glasses, and all the apparatus, are such an adornment; and
then the Follingsbees are such judges of wine. He imports his own from
Spain."

John's face had been hardening down into a firm, decided look, while
Lillie, stroking his whiskers and playing with his collar, went on
with this address.

At last he said, "Lillie, I have done almost every thing you ever
asked; but this one thing I cannot do,--it is a matter of principle. I
never drink wine, never have it on my table, never give it, because I
have pledged myself not to do it."

"Now, John, here is some more of your Quixotism, isn't it?"

"Well, Lillie, I suppose you will call it so," said John; "but listen
to me patiently. My father and I labored for a long time to root out
drinking from our village at Spindlewood. It seemed, for the time, as
if it would be the destruction of every thing there. The fact was,
there was rum in every family; the parents took it daily, the children
learned to love and long after it, by seeing the parents, and drinking
little sweetened remains at the bottoms of tumblers. There were, every
year, families broken up and destroyed, and fine fellows going to
the very devil, with this thing; and so we made a movement to form a
temperance society. I paid lecturers, and finally lectured myself. At
last they said to me: 'It's all very well for you rich people, that
have twice as fine houses and twice as many pleasures as we poor
folks, to pick on us for having a little something comfortable to
drink in our houses. If we could afford your fine nice wines, and all
that, we wouldn't drink whiskey. You must all have your wine on the
table; whiskey is the poor man's wine.'"

"I think," said Lillie, "they were abominably impertinent to talk so
to you. I should have told them so."

"Perhaps they thought I was impertinent in talking to them about their
private affairs," said John; "but I will tell you what I said to them.
I said, 'My good fellows, I will clear my house and table of wine, if
you will clear yours of rum.' On this agreement I formed a temperance
society; my father and I put our names at the head of the list, and we
got every man and boy in Spindlewood. It was a complete victory; and,
since then, there hasn't been a more temperate, thrifty set of