e long in constraint of manner with any one,
so, calling to his servant in a cheery voice,--

"Here, Jacob," he cried, "I want you in the garden." Jacob ran to him
briskly, for there was a charm in his young master's manner which he
could not resist.

"Jacob," said Frank Oldfield, "you saw me last night as I trust you will
never see me again, overcome with drink."

"Ay, mayster," said the other, "I see'd you sure enough, and I'd sooner
have see'd a yard full of lions and tigers nor such a sight as that."

"Well, Jacob, it was the first, and I trust the last time too; it was
wrong, very wrong. I'm thoroughly ashamed that you should have seen me
in such a plight. I was betrayed into it. I ought to have been more on
my guard; you mustn't think any more of it; I'll take care it doesn't
happen again."

"Ah, mayster," said the other, "I shall be rare and glad if it doesn't.
I hope you'll keep gradely teetottal, for the drink's a cheating and
lying thing."

"I hope so too," said Frank, and then the conversation dropped.

But now he remembered that the wine, beer, and spirits which he had
ordered were to come that very evening. What was he to do? Conscience
said very plainly, "Stand forth like a man, be at once a total
abstainer, it is your only safe course; tell Jacob all about it, and
send a counter-order by him at once, with a note of apology; call to-
morrow on the merchant, and tell him in a straightforward way that you
feel it your duty to become an abstainer forthwith; thus you will at
once show your colours, and will save yourself from much annoyance, and,
what is better still, from sin; and sign the pledge, that you may have a
barrier between yourself and the drink which all the world can
understand." Thus conscience spoke softly but clearly, as with the
vibrations of a silver bell; but lust, with its hot hand, stilled those
vibrations with a touch. Frank would not counter-order the drink, for
he loved it; he persuaded himself that he should be strictly moderate,
while he was secretly determined to keep within his reach the means of
excess. And yet he was very anxious that Jacob should not be aware of
the coming of any drink into the house. So he watched hour after hour
as evening drew on, feeling more like a felon bent on some deed of
darkness than an honest, straightforward Englishman. At last he saw the
merchant's spring-cart in the distance. Making some excuse for sending
Jacob to a house about