d
suitor in such glowing terms, and said that you had sacrificed a
splendid opportunity because of some squeamish notions on the subject of
temperance, and so of course, my dear cousin, it was just like me to let
my curiosity overstep the bounds of prudence, and inquire why you
rejected Mr. Romaine."[3]

"Because I could not trust him."

"Couldn't trust him? Why Belle you are a greater enigma than ever. Why
not?"

"Because I feel that the hands of a moderate drinker are not steady
enough to hold my future happiness."

"Was that all? Why I breathe again, we girls would have to refuse almost
every young man in our set, were we to take that stand."

"And suppose you were, would that be any greater misfortune than to be
the wives of drunkards."

"I don't see the least danger. Ma has wine at her entertainments, and I
have often handed it to young gentlemen, and I don't see the least harm
in it. On last New Year's day we had more than fifty callers. Ma and I
handed wine, to every one of them." "Oh I do wish people would abandon
that pernicious custom of handing around wine on New Year's day. I do
think it is a dangerous and reprehensible thing."

"Wherein lies the danger? Of course I do not approve of young men
drinking in bar rooms and saloons, but I cannot see any harm in handing
round wine at social gatherings. Not to do so would seem so odd."

"It is said Jeanette[,?] 'He is a slave who does not be, in the right
with two or three.' It is better, wiser far to stand alone in our
integrity than to join with the multitude in doing wrong. You say while
you do not approve of young men drinking in bar rooms and saloons, that
you have no objection to their drinking beneath the shadow of their
homes, why do you object to their drinking in saloons, and bar rooms?"

"Because it is vulgar. Oh! I think these bar rooms are horrid places. I
would walk squares out of my way to keep from passing them." "And I
object to intemperance not simply because I think it is vulgar but
because I know it is wicked; and Jeanette I have a young brother for
whose welfare I am constantly trembling; but I am not afraid that he
will take his first glass of wine in a fashionable saloon, or flashy gin
palace, but I do dread his entrance into what you call 'our set.' I fear
that my brother has received as an inheritance a temperament which will
be easily excited by stimulants, that an appetite for liquor once a
awakened will be hard to subdue, and