el any too good to apply fire to the place
herself. Mrs. Leslie sighed, and wiped away the tears with her
checked apron.

"It's hard, indeed, it is," she murmured, "to see a man like Jenks
growing richer and richer every day out of the earnings of poor
working-men, whose families are in want of bread. For every sixpence
that goes over his counter some one is made poorer--to some heart is
given a throb of pain."

"It's a downright shame!" exclaimed the neighbor, immediately. "If I
had my way with the lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, I'd see that he
did something useful, if it was to break stone on the road. Were it
my husband, instead of yours, that he enticed into his bar, depend
on't he'd get himself into trouble."

While this conversation was going on, a little girl, not over ten
years of age, sat listening attentively. After a while she went
quietly from the room, and throwing her apron over head, took her
way, unobserved by her mother, down the road.

Where was little Lizzie going? There was a purpose in her mind: She
had started on a mission. "O, if they wouldn't sell him liquor!"
These earnest, tearful words of her, mother had filled her thoughts.
If Mr. Jenks wouldn't sell her father anything to drink, "there
would be no more trouble." How simple, how direct the remedy! She
would go to Mr. Jenks, and ask him not to let her father have any
more liquor, and then all would be well again. Artless, innocent
child! And this was her mission.

The tavern kept by Jenks, the laziest man in Milanville,--he was too
lazy to work, and therefore went to tavern-keeping,--stood nearly a
quarter of a mile from the poor tenement occupied by the Leslies.
Towards this point, under a hot, sultry sun, little Lizzie made her
way, her mind so filled with its purpose that she was unconscious of
heat of fatigue.

Not long before a traveller alighted at the tavern. After giving
directions to have his horses fed, he entered the bar-room, and went
to where Jenks stood, behind the counter.

"Have something to drink?" inquired the landlord.

"I'll take a glass of water, if you please."

Jenks could not hide the indifference at once felt towards the
stranger. Very deliberately he set a pitcher and a glass upon the
counter, and then turned partly away. The stranger poured out a
tumbler of water, and drank it off with an air of satisfaction.

"Good water, that of yours, landlord," said he.

"Is it?" was returned, somewhat uncourteousl