t, then?" Theodora looked at him in astonishment.

"At banquets and dinners and receptions. Too often at college suppers,
and by boys not much older than Hu."

"Really?"

"Yes, Ted. Now, my dear, I'm going to give you a lecture. It won't be
like the one you heard, last night, for I'm not a temperance orator,
only a plain old doctor. Temperance isn't signing the pledge, or keeping
it after it is signed; it is keeping one's self free from all kinds of
badness and excess, whether it's drinking or smoking, or too much
dancing, or tight shoes. It is taking all our pleasures moderately, so
that they can never hurt our bodies or our minds. Do you see what I
mean?"

"But oughtn't all liquor to be taken away?" she urged, still mindful of
the orator's sounding periods.

"Like any other powerful drug. It's one thing to use it, Ted, another to
abuse it, as we doctors know. There are times when it must be used, just
like any other medicine. Because I give you a dose, one day, you don't
need to go on taking it forever, dear."

He paused for a minute, then he went on,--

"That is one side of it,--a side that we must look at. On the other is
the horrible danger of forming the habit of taking wine and such things
to excess. The suffering is terrible, and the poverty. That comes from
intemperance in drink more than from any other form of it; and the only
way that it is to be prevented is for us parents to teach our boys and
girls all the danger, teach them that, because they want it, there is no
excuse for their taking it. If you aren't strong enough to deny yourself
something you know is a sin, you haven't learned the first lesson of
good living. But it isn't drinking alone; there are other sins that are
as bad and as dangerous; and a man or woman, to be strong and pure and
good, must turn his back upon them all."

"But I did want to help," Theodora said. "There ought to be something
that a girl can do."

"So there is," her father answered quickly.

"What?"

"From now on, through all your young womanhood, be sure you stand on the
right side of things. Don't preach. That never does any good. Just frown
down any fastness in your friends. Let it be understood that you have
nothing to do with a man who drinks and swears, with a girl who is fast
or familiar, who laces till she can't breathe, and dances all night with
men whom she hardly knows. Let my Teddy, even if she must stand alone,
stand for all that is truest and best in