Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

THE AND GENERAL TEMPERANGE MONTHLY. ■: No 4. BRISTOL, DECEMBER 1, 1871. ONE PENNY. JMcct ®alr. "IT'S ONLY A DROP." AN IRISH TALE, BY MRS S. C. HALL. F you know that, Lany, why do you take the tablespoonful ?" Larry could not reply to this ques- tion. He could only plead that the drop got the betttr of him, and the temp- tation and the overcomingness of the thing, and it was very hard to be at him so about a trifle. " I can never think a thing a trifle," she observed, " that makesyou so unlike yourself; I should wish to respect you always, and in my heart I believe no woman ever could respcct a drunkard. I don't want to make you angry; God forbid you should ever be one; and I know you are not one yet; but sin grows mighty strong upon us without ourknow- ledge. And no matter what indulgence leads to bad, we've a right to think any- thin^ that does lead to it sinful in the prospect, if not at the prescnt." " You'dhave made a íîne priest, Ellen," said the young man, determined, if he could not reason, to laugh her out of her resolve. " I don't think," she replied archly, " if I were a priest, that either of you would have liked to come to me to confession." " But, Ellen, dear Ellen, sure it's not in positive downright earnest you are ; you can't think of putting me off on account of that unlucky drop, the least taste in life I took at the fair. You could not find it in your heart. Speak for me, Michael; speak for me. But I see it's joking you are. Why, Lent 'ill be on ut in no time," aud thcn we must wait till Easter—it's easy talldng—" "Larry," interrupted Ellen, "do not you talk yourself into a passion ; it will do no good, none in the world. I am sure you íove me, and I confess before my brother it will be the delight of my heart to return that love, and make my- sclf worthy of you, if you will only bffcak yourself of that one habit, which you qualify to your own undoing, by fancy- ing because it is the least taste in life makes you what you ought not to be, that you mny still take it." " I'll take an oath against the whisky, if that will plase ye, till Chiistmas." "And when Christmas comes get twice as tipsy as pver, with joy to think yer oath is out—no!" " 1*11 swear anything you plase." "I don't wan: you to swear at all; there is no use in a man's taking an oath he is anxious to have a chance of brealc- ing. I want your reason to be con- vinced." " My darling Ellen, all the reason I eyer had in my life is convinced." " Prove it by abstaining from even a drop, even the least drop in life, if that drop can make you ashamed to look your poor Ellen in the face." " I'll give it up altogether.'' " I hope you will, írom a conviction that it is really bad in every way ; but not from cowardice, not because you darn't trust yourself." " Ellen, I'm sure ye've some Euglish blood in yer veins, ye're such a raisoner. Irish women don't often throw a boy ofif because of a drop; if they did, it's not many marriage-dues his reverence would have, winter or summer." "Listen to me, Larry, and believe that, though I spaíce tm* way, I negard