rtunity of father and son, though with much reluctance. Mary had
seen Mark occasionally since the night of the 6th of January, and still
liked him, without a thought of going beyond this; but she was grieved
to see how strongly her mother felt against him, and was inclined to
think her a little hard. True, he had been betrayed into an excess on
Twelfth night; but, then, he was no drunkard. So she argued to herself,
and so too many argue; but how strange it is that people should argue so
differently about the sin of drunkenness from what they argue about
other sins! If a man lies to us _now and then_, do we call him
_habitually_ truthful? If a man steals _now and then_, do we call him
_habitually_ honest? Surely not; yet if a man is _only now and then_
drunken, his fault is winked at; he is considered by many as
_habitually_ a sober man; and yet, assuredly, if there be one sin more
than another which from the guilt and misery that it causes deserves
little indulgence, it is the sin of drunkenness. Mary took the common
view, and could not think of Mark as being otherwise than habitually
sober, because he was only now and then the worse for strong drink.

It was, as we have said, a lovely September morning, and all the members
of the picnic party were in high spirits. An omnibus had been hired
expressly for the occasion. Mark sat by the driver, and acted as
presiding genius. The common meeting-place was an old oak, above a mile
out of the town, and thither by ten o'clock all the providers and their
provisions had made their way. No one could look more bright than Mark
Rothwell, no one more peacefully lovely than Mary Franklin. All being
seated, off they started at an uproarious signal from Mark. Away they
went, along level road, through pebbly lane, its banks gorgeous with
foxgloves and fragrant with honeysuckles, over wild heath, and then up
grassy slopes. There were fourteen in the party: Mr Rothwell, Mark and
his three sisters, and a lady neighbour; Mrs Franklin and her daughter,
with a female friend; and five young gentlemen who were or seemed to be
cousins, more or less, to everybody. Five miles were soon passed, and
then the road was crossed by a little stream. Cautiously the lumbering
vehicle made its way down the shelving gravel, plunged into the
sparkling water, fouling it with thick eddies of liquid mud, and then,
with some slight prancings on the part of the willing horses, gained the
opposite ban