After a Shadow and Other Stories

"Yes," replied Mr. A., "I have known him in a business way for several years. We have considerable dealing with the house in which he is employed."

"What do you think of him?"

"He is a young man of decided business qualities."

"So it appear's to me. And you think favorably of him?"

"As to the business qualification I do," replied Mr. A., placing an emphasis on the word business.

"Then you do not think favorably of him in some other respect?"

Mr. A. was silent.

"I hope," said the other, "that you will speak out plainly. This is a matter, to me, of the first importance. If you know of any reason why I should not associate this young man with me in business I trust you will speak without reserve."

Mr. A. remained silent for some moments, and then said,—

"I feel considerably embarrassed in regard to this matter. I would on no account give a wrong impression in regard to the young man. He may be all right; is all right, perhaps; but—"

"But what, sir?"

"I have seen him in company with young men whose characters are not fair. And I have seen him entering into and coming out of places where it is not always safe to go."

"Enough, sir, enough!" said the gentleman, emphatically, "The matter is settled. It may be all right with him, as you say. I hope it is. But he can never be a partner of mine. And now, passing from him, I wish to ask about another young man, who has been in my mind second to Peters. He is in your employment."

"Ralph Gilpin, you mean."

"Yes."

"In every way unexceptionable. I can speak of him with the utmost confidence. He is right in all respects—right as to the business quality, right as to character, and right as to associations. You could not have a better man."

"The matter is settled, then," replied the gentleman. "I will take Ralph Gilpin if neither you nor he objects."

"There will be no objection on either side, I can answer for that," said Mr. A., and the interview closed.

From the mountain-top of hope, away down into the dark vale of despondency, passed Jacob Peters, when it was told him that Ralph Gilpin was to be a partner in the new firm which he had expected to enter.

"And so nothing is left to us," he said to himself, in bitterness of spirit, "but go down, while others, no better than we are, move steadily upwards. Why should Ralph Gilpin be preferred before me? He has no higher ability nor stricter integrity. He cannot be more faithful, more earnest, or more active than I would have been in the new position. But I am set aside and he is taken. It is a bitter, bitter disappointment!"

Three years have passed, and Ralph Gilpin is on the road to fortune, while Jacob Peters remains a clerk. And why? The one was careful of his good name; the other was not.

My young reader, take the lesson to heart. Guard well your good name; and as name signifies quality, by all means guard your spirit, so that no evil thing enter there; and your good name shall be only the expression of your good quality.

X

LITTLE LIZZIE

"IF they wouldn't let him have it!" said Mrs. Leslie, weeping. "O, if they wouldn't sell him liquor, there'd be no trouble! He's one of the best of men when he doesn't drink. He never brings liquor into the house; and he tries hard enough, I know, to keep sober, but he cannot pass Jenks's tavern."

Mrs. Leslie was talking with a sympathizing neighbor, who responded, by saying, that she wished the tavern would burn down, and that, for her part, she didn't feel any too good to apply fire to the place herself. Mrs. Leslie sighed, and wiped away the tears with her checked apron.

"It's hard, indeed, it is," she murmured, "to see a man like Jenks growing richer and richer every day out of the earnings of poor working-men, whose families are in want of bread. For every sixpence that goes over his counter some one is made poorer—to some heart is given a throb of pain."

"It's a downright shame!" exclaimed the neighbor, immediately. "If I had my way with the lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, I'd see that he did something useful, if it was to break stone on the road. Were it my husband, instead of yours, that he enticed into his bar, depend on't he'd get himself into trouble."

While this conversation was going on, a little girl, not over ten years of age, sat listening attentively. After a while she went quietly from the room, and throwing her apron over head, took her way, unobserved by her mother, down the road.

Where was little Lizzie going? There was a purpose in her mind: She had started on a mission. "O, if they wouldn't sell him liquor!" These earnest, tearful words of her, mother had filled her thoughts. If Mr. Jenks wouldn't sell her father anything to drink, "there would be no more trouble." How simple, how direct the remedy! She would go to Mr. Jenks, and ask him not to let her father have any more liquor, and then all would be well again. Artless, innocent child! And this was her mission.

The tavern kept by Jenks, the laziest man in Milanville,—he was too lazy to work, and therefore went to tavern-keeping,—stood nearly a quarter of a mile from the poor tenement occupied by the Leslies. Towards this point, under a hot, sultry sun, little Lizzie made her way, her mind so filled with its purpose that she was unconscious of heat of fatigue.

Not long before a traveller alighted at the tavern. After giving directions to have his horses fed, he entered the bar-room, and went to where Jenks stood, behind the counter.

"Have something to drink?" inquired the landlord.

"I'll take a glass of water, if you please."

Jenks could not hide the indifference at once felt towards the stranger. Very deliberately he set a pitcher and a glass upon the counter, and then turned partly away. The stranger poured out a tumbler of water, and drank it off with an air of satisfaction.

"Good water, that of yours, landlord," said he.

"Is it?" was returned, somewhat uncourteously.

"I call it good water—don't you?"

"Never drink water by itself." As Jenks said this, he winked to one of his good customers, who was lounging, in the bar. "In fact, it's so long since I drank any water, that I forgot how it tastes. Don't you, Leslie?"

The man, to whom this was addressed, was not so far lost to shame as Jenks. He blushed and looked confused, as he replied,—

"It might be better for some of us if we had not lost our relish for pure water."

"A true word spoken, my friend!" said the stranger, turning to the man, whose swollen visage, and patched, threadbare garments, too plainly told the story of his sad life. "'Water, pure water, bright water;' that is my motto. It never swells the face, nor inflames the eyes, nor mars the countenance. Its attendants are health, thrift, and happiness. It takes not away the children's bread, nor the toiling wife's garments. Water!—it is one of God's chiefest blessings! Our friend, the landlord here, says he has forgotten how it tastes; and you have lost all relish for the refreshing draught! Ah, this is a sad confession!—one which the angels might weep to hear!"

There were two or three customers in the bar besides Leslie, to whom this was addressed; and all of them, in spite of the landlord's angry and sneering countenance, treated the stranger with attention and respect. Seeing this, Jenks could not restrain himself; so, coming from behind his bar, he advanced to his side, and, laying his hand quite rudely on his shoulder, said, in a peremptory manner,—

"See here, my friend! If you are about making a temperance lecture, you can adjourn to the Town Hall or the Methodist Chapel."

The stranger moved aside a pace or two, so that the hand of Jenks might fall from his person, and then said, mildly,—

"There must be something wrong here if a man may not speak in praise of water without giving offense."

"I said you could adjourn your lecture!" The landlord's face was now fiery red, and he spoke with insolence and passion.

"O, well, as you are president of the meeting, I suppose we must let you exercise an arbitrary power of adjournment," said the stranger, good-humoredly. "I didn't think any one had so strong a dislike for water as to consider its praise an insult."

At this moment a child stepped into the bar-room. Her little face was flushed, and great beads of perspiration were slowly moving down her crimson cheeks. Her step was elastic, her manner earnest, and her large, dark eyes bright with an eager purpose. She glanced neither to the right nor the left, but walking up to the landlord, lifted to him her sweet young face, and said, in tones that thrilled every heart but his,—

"Please, Mr. Jenks, don't sell papa any more liquor!"