proceeded to act
as if he had forgotten that he was a gentleman.

Hence the card's seclusion in Marcella's boudoir. Hence, likewise,
Marcella's subsequent preference, in her temperance propaganda, for
straightforward means which no gentleman could affect to misunderstand.
She relied chiefly thereafter upon some highly colored charts depicting
the interior of the human stomach in varying stages of alcoholic
degeneration. According to these, "a single glass of wine or a measure
of ale," taken daily for a year, suffices to produce some startling
effects in color; while the result of "unrestrained indulgence for five
years" is spectacular in the extreme.

Besides these disconcerting color effects Marcella enacted a brief but
pithy drama in which she touched a lighted match to a tablespoonful of
alcohol, to show the true nature of the stuff and to symbolize the fate
of its votaries.

With charts and with blazing spirit, with tracts and with figures to
prove that we spend "more for the staff of death than for the staff of
life," Marcella was prepared to move upon the unsuspicious Miss
Caroline. Nor was she alone in such readiness for a good work. The
ladies all felt that their profligate sister should be brought to sign
the pledge.

And they called upon Miss Caroline with precisely this end in
view--called singly, and by twos and threes. But for some reason they
seemed always to find obstacles in the way of bringing forward this most
vital topic. If they had only discovered Miss Caroline in her cups, or
if her shaded rooms had been littered with empty rum bottles and
pervaded by the fumes of strong drink, or if she had audaciously offered
them wine, doubtless the thing would have been easy. But none of these
helpful phenomena could be observed, and Miss Caroline had a way of
leading the talk which would have made any reference to her unfortunate
habits seem ungraceful. It would be far too much to say that she charmed
them, but all of her callers were interested, many of them were
entertained, and a few became her warm defenders. Aunt Delia McCormick
surprised every one by aligning herself with this latter minority. She
declared, after her first call, that Miss Caroline was "a dear"; and
after the second call, that she was "a poor dear," and she forthwith
became of service to the newcomer in a thousand ways known only to the
masonry of housekeeping.

And since none of the ladies, for one reason or another, had found a w