"And you did warn me, faithfully."
"Yes. But the task is one I pray that I may never again have to perform."
"Amen," was the fervent response.
"How do you like Helen?" the young man asked, in a livelier tone, after a silence of nearly a minute.
"I have always been attached to her, John. You know that we have been together since we were little girls, until now we seem almost like sisters."
"And a sister, truly, I hope she may one day become," the brother said, with a meaning smile.
"Most affectionately will I receive her as such," was the reply of Alice. "Than Helen Weston, there is no one whom I had rather see the wife of my dear brother."
As she said this, she drew her arm around his neck, and kissed him affectionately.
"It shall not be my fault, then, Alice, if she do not become your sister—" was the brother's response.
Rigidly true to his pledge, John Barclay soon gained the honourable estimation in the social circle through which he moved, that he had held, before wine, the mocker, had seduced him from the ways of true sobriety, and caused even his best friends to regard him with changed feelings. Possessing a competence, which a father's patient industry had accumulated, he had not, hitherto, thought of entering upon any business. Now, however, he began to see the propriety of doing so, and as he had plenty of capital, he proposed to a young man of industrious habits and thorough knowledge of business to enter into a co-partnership with him. This offer was accepted, and the two young men commenced the world with the fairest prospects.