"That is just what we want to get married for, and take the pledge."
"Take that first."
"No; we must take all together—nothing else will save us."
"It did one of my friends."
"Well, then, go and bring that friend here; let me see and hear how much it saved him, and then I will make up my mind what to do. If I can do you any good, I want to do it."
"My friend is at work—he has got a good job and several hands working for him, and is making money, and won't quit till night. Shall I come this evening?"
"Yes, I will stay at home and wait for you."
He little expected to see him again, but about eight o'clock the servant said that man and his girl, with a gentleman and lady, were waiting in the reception room. He told him to ask the lady and gentleman to walk up to the parlor and sit a moment, while he sent the candidates for marriage away, being determined never to unite another drunken couple, not dreaming that there was any sympathy between the parties. But they would not come up; they wanted to see that couple married. So he went down, and found the squalidly wretched pair, that had been there in the morning, in conversation, and apparently very friendly and intimate, with the lady and gentleman. He had the appearance of a well dressed laboring man, for he wore a fine black coat, silk vest, gold watch-chain, clean white shirt and cravat, polished calf-skin boots; and his wife was just as neat and tidily dressed as anybody's wife, and her face beamed with intelligence, and the way in which she clung to the arm of her husband, as she seemed to shrink out of sight, told that she was a loving as well as a pretty wife.
"This couple," said the gentleman, "have come to be married."