e olive skin
was red with the angry marks of blood, and the graceful form of the young
man appeared like the body of a tortured martyr. He grew thinner and
thinner every day, for he ate but little; the skin was stretched on the
bones of his face, and the black eyes burnt in dark purple hollows. His
relations noticed that he was not looking well.

"Now, Lucian, it's perfect madness of you to go on like this," said Miss
Deacon, one morning at breakfast. "Look how your hand shakes; some people
would say that you have been taking brandy. And all that you want is a
little medicine, and yet you won't be advised. You know it's not my
fault; I have asked you to try Dr. Jelly's Cooling Powders again and
again."

He remembered the forcible exhibition of the powders when he was a boy,
and felt thankful that those days were over. He only grinned at his
cousin and swallowed a great cup of strong tea to steady his nerves,
which were shaky enough. Mrs. Dixon saw him one day in Caermaen; it was
very hot, and he had been walking rather fast. The scars on his body
burnt and tingled, and he tottered as he raised his hat to the vicar's
wife. She decided without further investigation that he must have been
drinking in public-houses.

"It seems a mercy that poor Mrs. Taylor was taken," she said to her
husband. "She has certainly been spared a great deal. That wretched young
man passed me this afternoon; he was quite intoxicated."

"How very said," said Mr. Dixon. "A little port, my dear?"

"Thank you, Merivale, I will have another glass of sherry. Dr. Burrows is
always scolding me and saying I _must_ take something to keep up my
energy, and this sherry is so weak."

The Dixons were not teetotalers. They regretted it deeply, and blamed the
doctor, who "insisted on some stimulant." However, there was some
consolation in trying to convert the parish to total abstinence, or, as
they curiously called it, temperance. Old women were warned of the sin of
taking a glass of beer for supper; aged laborers were urged to try
Cork-ho, the new temperance drink; an uncouth beverage, styled coffee,
was dispensed at the reading-room. Mr. Dixon preached an eloquent
"temperance" sermon, soon after the above conversation, taking as his
text: _Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees_. In his discourse he showed
that fermented liquor and leaven had much in common, that beer was at the
present day "put away" during Passover by the strict Jews; and in a
moving