"We have formed quite a pleasant circle of acquaintances, and our evenings are musical, conversational or _gamical_, as best suits the invalid, who lies upon the sofa and dictates the programme. Last evening we did nothing but talk. An editor of one of our city journals was present, having just returned from an extensive tour through the wine growing districts of the State. He says that wine making is fraught with dire evils to the producer and to the country. That it has become almost as cheap as milk, and as freely drank, till many once sober men are now habitually intoxicated. He was told that in one neighborhood, young girls seventeen years of age, reeled in the streets under the intoxication of pure California wine. Men whom he once knew to be of worth he found lost to society, and becoming a fear and disgrace to their families. One leading man whom he met, enumerated five of his acquaintances, who, once noble men, are now to be called drunkards through wine. He thinks that the production of the article, now fearfully on the increase, must become a curse to the whole land if persevered in. "In going through the wine growing regions he found it expected, as an act of politeness, that wine must everywhere be presented and drank, and if he consented at all to drink, he would be compelled to drink many times a day, and would become a wine toper with others. He declared that touch not, taste not, handle not the accursed thing, was the only rule of safety. "He said if each grape grower would grow only the raisin grape for sale, there would be no end to the profitable disposal of all which he could ever produce without sin or danger to any one. "I remarked that European travellers told us that very few drank to intoxication in those places where wine was made from the pure juice of the grape, and it was generally supposed that the manufacture of pure domestic wine in this country would do away almost entirety with intemperance. "In answer, he read us a letter which he had just received from his friend, a well known resident of this city now in France. It contained a flat contradiction of the statements to which I had alluded, and drew a dark picture of the intemperance in the wine producing districts of France and Germany. In fact, it was a radical plea--as Daddy would say--'agin the hull infarnel stuff.'" CHAPTER XXXVII. ANOTHER DEATH IN THE OLD BROWN HOUSE. It was late in the month of December when Little Wolf received from Mrs. Tinknor the following sad account of the Death Angel's visit to the old brown house: "My dear child: