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“Help yourself,” said his friend, ere another minute had elapsed, as Barclay took up the bottle to fill his glass for the third time. “Long-abstinence has no doubt made you keen.”

“It certainly has, or else this is the finest article of wine that has ever passed my lips.”

‘It’s not the best quality by a good deal; still it is pretty fair. But won’t you try a mint-julep, or a punch, by way of variety?”

“No objection,” was the brief response.

“Which will you choose?”

“I’ll take a julep.”

“Two juleps,” said Watson to the waiter who entered immediately afterwards.

The juleps were soon ready, each furnished with a long straw.

“Delicious!” was Barclay’s low, and delighted ejaculation, as he bent to the table, and “imbibed” through the straw a portion of the liquid.

“Our friend R–understands his business,” was Watson’s brief reply.

A silence of some moments ensued, during which a painful consciousness of danger rushed through the mind of Barclay. But with an effort he dismissed it. He did not intend to drink beyond the bounds of moderation, and why should he permit his mind to be disturbed by idle fears?

* * * * *

“It is time that brother was here,” Alice said to Helen Weston, as the two maidens sat alone, near a window in Helen’s chamber, the evening twilight falling gently and with a soothing influence.

“Yes. I expected him earlier,” was the reply, in a low tone, while Helen’s bosom heaved with a new, and exquisitely pleasurable emotion. “What can keep him?”

“He is lingering at his toilet, perhaps,” Alice said, with a smile.

All was silent again for many minutes, each gentle and innocent heart; busy with images of delight.

“It’s strange that he does not come, Alice, or sister, as I must call you,” Helen remarked, in a graver tone, as the shadowy twilight deepened until everything wore a veil of indistinctness.

“There! That must be him!” Alice said. “Hark! That is certainly his voice! Yes–And he is coming right up to your room, as I live, as boldly as if the house belonged to him.”

While Alice was yet speaking, the door of the chamber in which they sat was swung open with a rude hand, and her brother entered. His face was flushed, and his whole person in disorder.

“Why, brother! what has kept–,” but the sister could utter no more. Her tongue was paralyzed, and she stood, statue-like, gazing upon him with a look of horror. He was intoxicated! It was his wedding-night, a portion of the company below, and the gentle, affectionate maiden who was to become his bride, all attired and waiting, and he had come intoxicated!

Poor Helen’s bewildered senses could not at first fully comprehend the scene. When she did realize the terrible truth, the shock was more than she could bear.

Over the whole scene of pain, disorder, and confusion, that transpired on that evening, we must draw a veil. Any reader of even ordinary imagination can realize enough of the exquisite distress which it must have brought to many hearts, without the aid of distinct pictures. And those who cannot realize it, will be spared the pain of its contemplation.

One week from that night, at about nine o’clock in the evening, as old Mr. Gray was passing along one of the principal streets of the city where the occurrences we are relating took place, a young man staggered against him, and then fell at full length upon the pavement, from whence he rolled into the gutter, swollen by a smart shower that had just fallen. Too drunk to help himself, he must have been drowned even in that insignificant stream, had there not been help at hand.

Mr. Gray came at once to his relief, and assisted him to rise and get upon the pavement. But now he was unable to stand. Either hurt by the fall, or unnerved by the liquor he had taken, he was no longer able to keep his feet. While Mr. Gray stood holding him up, undetermined how to act, another young man, not quite so drunk as the one he had in charge, came whooping along like an Indian.