, in a half-sneering tone.

"It is not that, Boyd."

"Then what is it, pray?"

"I am afraid it is not right."

This was answered by a loud laugh from his two friends, which touched
Thomas a good deal, and made him feel more ashamed of the scruples that
held him back from entering into the temptation.

"Come down with your stake, Howland," Boyd said, after he had finished
his laugh.

The hand of Thomas was in his pocket, and his fingers had grasped the
silver coin, yet still he hesitated.

"Will you play, or not?" the friend of Boyd now said, with something of
impatience in his tone. "Say yes, or no."

For a moment the mind of Thomas became confused--then the perception
came upon him as clear as a sunbeam, that it was wrong to gamble. He
remembered, too, vividly his father's parting injunction.

"_No_," he said, firmly and decidedly.

Both of his companions looked disappointed and angry.

"What did you bring him for?" he heard Boyd's companion say to him in
an under tone, while a frown darkened upon his brow.

The reply did not reach his ear, but he felt that his company was no
longer pleasant, and rising, he bade them a formal good-evening, and
hurriedly retired. That little word _no_ had saved him. The scheme was,
to win from him his forty dollars, and then involve him in "debts of
honor," as they are falsely called, which would compel him to draw upon
his father for more money, or abstract it from his employer, a system
which had been pursued by Boyd, and which was discovered only a week
subsequent, when the young man was discharged in disgrace. It then came
out, that he had been for months in secret association with a gambler,
and that the two shared together the spoils and peculations.

This incident roused Thomas Howland to a distinct consciousness of the
danger that lurked in his path, as a young man, in a large city. He
felt, as he had not felt while simply listening to his father's precept,
the value of the word _no_; and resolved that hereafter he would utter
that little word, and that, too, decidedly, whenever urged to do what
his judgment did not approve.

"I will be free!" he said, pacing his chamber backward and forward. "I
will be free, hereafter! No one shall persuade me or drive me to do what
I feel to be wrong."

That conclusion was his safeguard ever after. When tempted, and he was
tempted frequently, his "_No_" decided the matter at once. There was a
power in it that was all-suffici