His father gave a quick look at him; for upstairs Hugh had told him all about that episode with Tom on Christmas-day. "Would you rather, dear boy?" asked his father. "Yes; I was not brave once, but I'll try to be brave now." His mother held out one hand to him, the other being clasped by Agnes, while Minnie sat at their feet, leaning against them, though she disdained the idea of being in the least sleepy. John sat by his father, his eyes shining with a serene light. "Well, my boy," said Mr. Headley, after a moment, only pausing to draw Alice close to his side, "what I said upstairs was this, I think. Mother and I decided long ago for ourselves, that, seeing the misery which drink brings to thousands in our country, we will not, for our part, take one drop of it except as medicine. We will do our best to prove that men and women can live, and be happy too, without it. If you read the fourteenth of Romans, you will see all the arguments set down which influenced us. Feeling that this is for us a sacred duty, we have brought you up in the same way, expecting you as a matter of obedience to abstain while you are young. By-and-by you will be able to judge more wisely than you can now." "Then explain to them where I was wrong, father." "You failed in obedience--and in courage," added his father. "Yes," answered Hugh very gravely, "I saw that very soon, but not as plainly as you have put it, father." "I have sometimes felt it a great comfort in the perplexities which arise in our hearts and lives to do as Paul says--'Take the shield of _faith_ whereby we may quench the fiery darts of the wicked one'--and I believe it is applicable to you too, Hugh. "When questions come up which I cannot answer, I say to myself, 'I will take refuge under my faith in my heavenly Father; if I hide under _His_ shadow, the fiery darts will have no power. He has said so; He knows best.' "So you, Hugh, take refuge under your faith in your earthly father, say 'he knows best;' and while you are young it will help you to find an answer, when otherwise you might be tempted to do what you would grieve in after years to have done." "But you don't think drinking a glass of beer or wine wrong in itself, father?" "Wrong for me, thinking as I do; wrong for you, because of my convictions, and my commands to you concerning them." Hugh seemed entirely satisfied; for was he not forgiven? And then they turned to other subjects, though Alice's eyes were looking wonderingly at them all. "Mother," she said suddenly, as Mrs. Headley's white shawl fell from her shoulders, "you have a different dress on from any you had before you went away, and it----has _crêpe_ on it." "Yes," answered her mother gently; "but my heart is not in mourning." "But----," said Alice, not liking to ask more.