"I should like to know how baby Lily is at Mrs. Fowley's, if you could
find out, and whether they were vexed at my running away. But please
don't tell them I am here.

"DICK."

This letter gave Paddy so much pleasure when it reached him that his
first impulse was to take it to the "Brown Bear" and read it to some of
his cronies there, just for the joy of sharing it.

But better thoughts came.

"And shure if I hearkened to the good book he was reading that night
and what he says here about the drink I should never touch the beer
again at all, at all. He said we could all be Lionhearts, and that God
wouldn't like to go into them places with me. And he says again here
that God does answer when we pray. Maybe if I went round to Dick's
teacher and signed the pledge the Almighty would help me to keep it,
and then I could save a bit of money and go to Ironboro' too."

Paddy had been sitting by his little fire after tea when the letter
came, and he sat on for a long while, staring into the bright coals and
seeing in fancy Dick's pleading face again. Suddenly he got down
awkwardly upon his knees, and with the letter in his hand prayed his
first real prayer.

And that night he signed the pledge and hung up the card over his
mantelpiece where all might see it, and the sight of his own name, put
to such a promise, was a continual help to him in the fight that lay
before him.

CHAPTER VIII.

LIONHEART'S BRAVE STAND.

Paddy's courage and determination were soon put to the test. He had
been a bar favourite so long that his absence was soon noticed, and the
men he had so often entertained and treated were loud in their
complaints and jeers. The ridicule was hard enough to bear, but the
sneers at his stingy ways hurt him most.

For Paddy's warm Irish heart loved to give, and to make pleasure for
others, and many a time he had spent his last coin in treating a
comrade.

The publicans, too, missed his songs and merry stories, that always led
to rounds of applause and renewed treating. The landlord of the "Brown
Bear" stood at his door to watch for Paddy, and offers of free drinks
and boisterous welcome met him almost every night.

But he had learned to distrust his own strength, and to lean upon the
promised help of God. Night and morning he knelt by his chair and
prayed for the victory, and with the thought of Lionheart to help him
he went out to the battle girded with the strength that never fails.