d making him part and parcel in every piece of
mischief that was going on.

With all this premised, there is no need to say that Harry was a special
favorite with ladies; in truth, it was a confessed fact among his
acquaintances, that, whereas dozens of creditable, respectable,
well-to-do young men might besiege female hearts with every proper
formality, waiting at the gates and watching at the posts of the doors
in vain, yet before him all gates and passages seemed to fly open of
their own accord. Nevertheless, there was in his native village one
quiet maiden who held alone in her hand the key that could unlock his
heart in return, and carried silently in her own the spell that could
fetter that brilliant, restless spirit; and she it was, of the
thoughtful brow and downcast eyes, whom we saw in our picture, bending
over the letter with his mother.

That mother Harry loved to idolatry. She was to his mind an
impersonation of all that was lovely in womanhood, hallowed and sainted
by age, by wisdom, by sorrow; and his love for her was a beautiful union
of protective tenderness, with veneration; and to his Ellen it seemed
the best and most sacred evidence of the nobleness of his nature, and of
the worth of the heart which he had pledged to her.

Nevertheless, there was a danger overhanging the heads of the three--a
little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, rising in the horizon of
their hopes, yet destined to burst upon them, dark and dreadful, in a
future day.

In those scenes of college hilarity where Harry had been so
indispensable, the bright, poetic wine cup had freely circulated, and
often amid the flush of conversation, and the genial excitement of the
hour, he had drank freer and deeper than was best.

He said, it is true, that he cared nothing for it, that it was nothing
to him, that it never affected him, and all those things that young men
always say when the cup of Circe is beginning its work with them.
Friends were annoyed, became anxious, remonstrated; but he laughed at
their fears, and insisted on knowing himself best. At last, with a
sudden start and shiver of his moral nature, he was awakened to a
dreadful perception of his danger, and resolved on decided and
determinate resistance. During this period he came to Cincinnati to
establish himself in business, and as at this time the temperance
reformation was in full tide of success there, he found every thing to
strengthen his resolution; temperance m