e, and Mrs. Hart to make it,
and I hope--oh, I do hope--you'll come here and have a good time every
night," she ended.

Jack was touched. "Ally, you're a trump! and I'll do it sure."

And he did. At first when the story got out, all the boys came from
curiosity to see what one girl had done; and after that they
continued to come because it was the pleasantest place in town and all
their own.

No irksome restraints were put upon the boys, and there were no
visitors who came to give them temperance lectures or unwelcome
advice; no boy was asked to read book or paper, and no one was told
how much better for him was coffee than beer. This, each one found out
for himself, in the best way--by experience.

Every evening, before it was time for the boys to begin to come, Alice
would run down to see that everything was right, that the fire was
bright, the coffee ready, and Mrs. Hart in her place. Then she would
open the bookcase, select three or four of the most interesting
looking books, and lay them around on the tables, in a careless way,
as if they were accidentally left there.

Nor did she let people forget about it. As often as once a week, she
went to the houses of those most interested, and received from one the
weekly papers that had been read, from another a fresh book or
magazine, and from a third some new game or a pretty print to put on
the wall.

Coffee and the things to put in it, Alice had no need to ask for. The
two cents a cup proved to be more than enough to pay for it.

Promptly at half-past nine Mrs. Hart gathered up the things and washed
the cups and saucers, and as the clock struck ten she put out the
lights and locked the door.

Books and papers did their silent work, and before spring the young
men grew ashamed of owing their comforts to charity, so they agreed
among themselves to pay a small sum weekly toward expenses. It was not
binding on any one, but nearly every one was glad to do it, and by
this means, before another winter, the coffee-room was an independent
establishment.

The power it was among those boys could not be told, till years
afterwards, when it was found that nearly every one who had spent his
evenings there had become a sober, honest citizen, while those who
preferred the saloon, filled drunkards' graves, or lived criminals,
and a pest upon society.

On Jack himself, the effect was perhaps the most striking. As Alice
had started the thing, he could not help feeling it hi