subject.

Half an hour, passed in troubled thought, elapsed after this brief
interview between the brother and sister, when the young man left
the house and took his way, scarcely reflecting upon where he was
going, to one of his accustomed places of resort--a fashionable
drinking house, where every device that ingenuity could invent, was
displayed to attract custom. Splendid mirrors and pictures hung
against the walls, affecting the mind with pleasing thoughts--and
tempting to self-indulgence. There were lounges, where one might
recline at ease, while he sipped the delicious compounds the richly
furnished bar afforded, never once dreaming that a serpent lay
concealed in the cup that he held to his lips--a serpent that one
day would sting him, perhaps unto death!

"Regular as clock-work,"--said an old man, a friend of Barclay's
father, who had been dead several years, meeting the young man as he
was about to enter the attractive establishment just alluded to.

"How?" asked Barclay in a tone of enquiry.

"Six times a day, John, is too often for you to be seen going into
the same drinking-house,"--said the old man, with plain-spoken
honesty.

"You must not talk to me in that way, Mr. Gray," the other rejoined
sternly.

"My respect and regard for the father, will ever cause me to speak
plainly to the son when I think him in danger," was Mr. Gray's calm