e hasn't promised yet. O, I wish he
would promise!"

"Promise her, in Heaven's name!" said the stranger.

"Promise!" said Leslie, in a stern yet solemn voice, as he turned
and fixed his eyes upon the landlord.

"If I do promise, I'll keep it!" returned Jenks, in a threatening
tone, as he returned the gaze of Leslie.

"Then, for God's sake, _promise!_" exclaimed Leslie, in a
half-despairing voice. "_Promise, and I'm safe!_"

"Be it so! May I be cursed, if ever I sell you a drop of drinking at
this bar, while I am landlord of the 'Stag and Hounds'!" Jenks spoke
with with an angry emphasis.

"God be thanked!" murmured the poor drunkard, as he led his child
away. "God be thanked! There is hope for me yet."

Hardly had the mother of Lizzie missed her child, ere she entered,
leading her father by the hand.

"O, mother!" she exclaimed, with a joy-lit countenance, and in a
voice of exultation, "Mr. Jenks has promised."

"Promised what?" Hope sprung up in her heart, on wild and fluttering
wings, her face flushed, and then grew deadly pale. She sat panting
for a reply.

"That he would never sell me another glass of liquor," said her
husband.

A pair of thin, white hands were clasped quickly together, an ashen
face was turned upwards, tearless eyes looked their thankfulness to
heaven.

"There is hope yet, Ellen," said Leslie.

"Hope, hope! And O, Edward, you have said the word!"

"Hope, through our child. Innocence has prevailed over vice and
cruelty. She came to the strong, evil, passionate man, and, in her
weakness and innocence, prevailed over him. God made her fearless
and eloquent."

A year afterwards a stranger came again that way, and stopped at the
"Stag and Hounds." As before, Jenks was behind his well-filled bar,
and drinking customers came and went in numbers. Jenks did not
recognize him until he called for water, and drank a full tumbler of
the pure liquor with a hearty zest. Then he knew him, but feigned to
be ignorant of his identity. The stranger made no reference to the
scene he had witnessed there a twelvemonth before, but lingered in
the bar for most of the day, closely observing every one that came
to drink. Leslie was not among the number.

"What has become of the man and the little girl I saw here, at my
last visit to Milanville?" said the stranger, speaking at last to
Jenks.

"Gone to the devil, for all I care," was the landlord's rude answer,
as he turned off from his questioner.