tunity of acquiring a taste for intoxicants,
was a great gain on the side of righteousness.

Eric and Alfred were among these latter, and though neither had as yet
spent an evening away from home, nor, to her knowledge, knew the taste
of liquor, their mother, when she was told of it, gave hearty thanks
that another safeguard against evil had been thrown around her boys.

Some of the men declined to sign the pledge, one saying in a surly
manner that he was not going to be coerced into doing a thing of this
kind. Mr. Mountjoy paid for his work, not his principles, and he should
eat and drink just what he liked. To him James replied, pleasantly, that
he did not wish to coerce any one. Those who were conscientiously
opposed to signing a pledge would, of course, not be expected to do so,
but he had no doubt he should have the unanimous support of all present
in whatever efforts might be made to put down the growing evils of
intemperance.

James Mountjoy never did anything by halves. He at once threw himself
earnestly into the temperance reform; supplied himself with books and
papers, and became thoroughly conversant with all phases of the
question, wondering, as he did so, how as a Christian man he could so
long have overlooked his duty in this matter. Resolved to do so no
longer, he at once commenced a series of temperance meetings, inviting
speakers and lecturers to come to Squantown and make the people
intelligent total abstainers. He did not select so much men who were
noted for their fervid oratory, nor yet reformed drunkards who often
divert their audiences with amusing accounts of their past performances
while under the influence of strong drink, but plain, common-sense
business men, who put before their hearers in simple terms the evils
that the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol work to the
purses, bodies, and souls of any community.

He also added to the library at the factory reading-room a number of
valuable works on the nature and effects of alcohol; and before the
winter was over had the pleasure of seeing a very marked change in the
condition of the factory people as the result of his efforts.

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[Footnote 2: An actual occurrence.]

CHAPTER XXI.

THE DO GOOD SOCIETY.

Meanwhile the girls at Miss Eunice's tea-party had been busily
discussing the funeral and its sad cause.

"What an awful thing intemperance is!" said one of the elder girls.
"Even women sometimes drink to excess