There was a little odor of whiskey about Bertha, and so there was about Reginald; and Ethelbert’s senses were as keen in one case as they were in the other; but she noticed that while Bertha seemed not in the least surprised that such a man as Reginald was found in a nice lady’s company, he was plainly indignant at seeing Bertha there; and that he watched them with disapprobation while they leaned over an illustrated paper together. “Now I would like you to read an account of the two women who took a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres; and for seven years worked it so well and wisely that they now have a delightful, valuable home, and have since added three other women to the household: women who had lost hope of happiness and honor, but are now becoming healthy and self-sustained by work,—honest, skillful work. Of course one has to have health in order to have nice clear brains.” “O Bertha, did you read and understand the health journal I loaned you? And did you think, after all the facts I told you, that you would better still sometimes use whiskey and—” “Indeed, Miss Daksha, I have not taken more than—” “Bertha,” Ethelbert interrupted. “Of course you will drink whiskey all you choose. I was only wishing you would choose not to drink it at all. Do you think rum drinking makes people healthy, wealthy and wise?” Bertha’s face had lighted up under the idea which had lately been brought to her by this friend, whose unvarying recognition of Bertha’s individuality, and of the fact that she could make of herself just such a woman as she chose to make, had opened a world of dignified possibilities before her. Her large eyes, which often had the look of an angry animal brought to bay, had now in them a puzzled, wondering look, full of startled expectancy. “Do you think I am healthier than you are?” said Ethelbert. Bertha nodded eagerly. “Would you wish to be like me?” “O Gott in Himmel! Would I not!” said Bertha, and she threw her old apron over her head; and the wild conflict within broke forth in a tempest of sobs. Reginald sat down on the steps with his back to them both, and looked out on the evening clouds; and Ethelbert, in that sharp fellowship with suffering which is part of the price paid by those whose soul-sight gives them redemptive power with the tempted and fallen, steadied herself under the pangs of the sudden remorse that had struck the heart of the man and of the woman anear. “There Bertha, now listen,” said she presently. “Let us, you and I, not do anything which will in the least harm the pure river of life, which, flowing through our veins, comes first from Jehovah, the fount of all life. See, Bertha!”