ome was their own, the drink was ever before their eyes, the
daily sin and misery that it caused they knew by sharp experience--time
after time had they been urged to take the drink by those very parents
whose substance, whose strength, whose peace had all withered down to
the very ground under its fatal poison. How hard had been the struggle
to resist! but now, if they became pledged abstainers, they would have
something more to say which could give additional strength to their
refusal.

The speaker stood pen in hand when he had closed his address.

"Come--which of you young people will sign?"

Samuel made his way to the table.

"I don't mind if _I_ do," he said; and then turning to Betty, when he
had written his name, "come, Betty," he cried, "you'll sign too--come,
stick to the pen."

"Well, I might do worse, I reckon," said Betty, and she also signed. A
few more followed, and shortly afterwards the meeting broke up.

But a storm was now brewing, which the brother and sister had not
calculated for. Johnson and three or four kindred spirits were sitting
round a neighbour's fire smoking and drinking while the meeting was
going on. A short time after it had closed, a man thrust open the door
of the house where Johnson was sitting, and peeping round, said with a
grin,--

"I say, Tommy Jacky," (the nickname by which Johnson was familiarly
known), "your Sammul and Betty have just been signing Teetottal Pledge."

"Eh! what do you say?" exclaimed Johnson in a furious tone, and
springing to his feet; "signed the pledge! I'll see about that;" and
hurrying out of the house, he half ran half staggered to his own
miserable dwelling. He was tolerably sobered when he got there. Samuel
was sitting by the fire near his mother, who was frying some bacon for
supper. Betty had just thrown aside on to the couch the handkerchief
which she had used instead of a bonnet, and was preparing to help her
mother. Johnson sat down in the old rickety rocking-chair at the
opposite side of the fire to Samuel, and stooping down, unbuckled his
clogs, which he kicked off savagely; then he looked up at his son, and
said in a voice of suppressed passion,--

"So, my lad, you've been and signed teetottal."

"Yes, I have," was the reply.

"And _you've_ signed too," he cried in a louder voice, turning fiercely
upon Betty.

"Ay, fayther, I have," said Betty, quietly.

"Well, now," said Johnson, clenching his teeth, "you just mind _me_,