Poor Bertie! A hard fight was before her. Fourteen years of unresisted pride, jealousy, and ill-will had formed habits that were hard to break--fourteen years of caring for no one's pleasure but her own. In brief, fourteen years of worshiping herself had helped to form a character which would need a good deal of chiseling before it should grow into an image of Christ. But he had undertaken the work. Miss Eunice had shown her how to avail herself of his offered help, and as she took her teacher's advice, we may be sure that in the end she gained the victory. CHAPTER XX. A WARNING. So the short, bright autumn days and the long, chill evenings passed quickly and pleasantly away. All were busy and happy, and were beginning to find that in spite of conflicts and self-denials "wisdom's ways are pleasantness and all her paths are peace." The preparations for the Thanksgiving festival progressed rapidly, but before the time came to put the plans in execution a very terrible thing happened in Squantown. Faces turned white, voices were hushed, work was suspended at the mill, in the stores, and even upon farms. One home, where a loving mother bowed in deepest agony, was shrouded in gloom, while others were filled with the sympathy of mourning. The Mountjoys first heard the news at Sunday-school, where Etta found her class so full of the horror that they could attend to nothing else. The stories of the girls were confused, and differed as to details, but their teacher elicited from them the facts, which were as follows:-- Harry Pemberton, one of the best hands in the mill, one of the pleasantest young fellows in Squantown, so the grown-up girls thought, the very idol of the widowed mother who had only him, had gone out with some companions on a Saturday night "spree" to a high cliff in the neighborhood. They carried with them a barrel of beer and some bottles of whiskey, of which, however, the others drank but little. A foolish bet was made between him and one of the elder men, as to which could drink the most "lager," and the others, soon tiring of the contest, left the two with the bet still undecided. The sequel was involved in mystery, for the other man, who was a stranger in the place, had disappeared, and when the bright autumn sun shone out on Sunday morning, it showed to the early passers-by the dead body of poor Harry, bruised, broken, and disfigured, at the foot of the cliff. Whether the beer they had taken made him and his companion quarrelsome and he was pushed over in a fight, or whether Harry, stupefied, fell asleep on the edge and rolled over in his unconsciousness, was never known. The boon companion never came back to testify, and the coroner's jury brought in a verdict of "accidentally killed."[2]