ball, we
had stopped to rest on the piazza, when Frank proposed that we should
take the ponies to a plank road a few miles from the house, and race
them. I was certain that his father would disapprove of this, and,
besides, it would have been most cruel work on such a warm afternoon, so
I tried to make Frank think of something else he would like to do
instead; but all in vain.

"'I think you might go, Charlie,' he said. 'What's the harm of doing it;
_only this once_? I just want to see if either of my ponies is likely to
be a fast trotter.'

"For one moment I hesitated, but in the next came the thought of my
father's displeasure, and I shook my head.

"'Very well, just as you please, Mr. Good Boy! I know plenty who will be
glad of the chance to ride Jet;' and so saying he walked away.

"Frank did find a boy who was delighted to go with him, and enjoyed the
race so much that, notwithstanding his father's reprimand, he managed to
pursue the same sport more times than 'only that once.'

"As soon as the summer was ended, Mr. Allen went to Europe for his
health, and I did not see his son again for three years, till I left the
country and entered the same college with him.

"Frank began studying very earnestly; but before the first year was
ended, the earnestness had passed away. Friends would induce him to
spend his evenings at their rooms, or at some public place of amusement,
and each time Frank would try to satisfy his conscience with, 'It will
be only this once.'

[Illustration: "_Only this once_."]

"Thus by degrees, his lessons were neglected, and as study became
irksome, his love for excitement and gaiety increased, till one day I
overheard a gentleman, who knew him well, remark that he feared Frank's
'only this once' would prove his ruin.

"But a few years before, Frank would have been shocked with the thought
of spending the afternoons in racing, and evenings in billiard saloons.
He had not at first really intended to visit these places more than
'once,' 'just to see for myself;' but there are very few who ever stop
in the course of wrong doing at 'only this once.'

"At length his father died. When the sad tidings reached the son, he
seemed more thoughtful for a time; but in an hour of temptation he
yielded. Before long his old companions surrounded him again, and of
them he soon learned how to spend the large fortune left him by his
father, in a most reckless manner.

"In vain his true friends tried t