It was a lovely morning in the September after the juvenile party, one of those mornings which combine the glow of summer with the richness of autumn. A picnic had been arranged to a celebrated hill about ten miles distant from Hopeworth. The Rothwells had been the originators, and had pressed Mary Franklin to join the party. Mrs Franklin had at first declined for her daughter. She increasingly dreaded any intimacy between her and Mark, whose habits she feared were getting more and more self-indulgent; and Mary herself was by no means anxious to go, but Mark's father had been particularly pressing on the subject, more so than Mrs Franklin could exactly understand, so she yielded to the joint importunity of father and son, though with much reluctance. Mary had seen Mark occasionally since the night of the 6th of January, and still liked him, without a thought of going beyond this; but she was grieved to see how strongly her mother felt against him, and was inclined to think her a little hard. True, he had been betrayed into an excess on Twelfth night; but, then, he was no drunkard. So she argued to herself, and so too many argue; but how strange it is that people should argue so differently about the sin of drunkenness from what they argue about other sins! If a man lies to us _now and then_, do we call him _habitually_ truthful? If a man steals _now and then_, do we call him _habitually_ honest? Surely not; yet if a man is _only now and then_ drunken, his fault is winked at; he is considered by many as _habitually_ a sober man; and yet, assuredly, if there be one sin more than another which from the guilt and misery that it causes deserves little indulgence, it is the sin of drunkenness. Mary took the common view, and could not think of Mark as being otherwise than habitually sober, because he was only now and then the worse for strong drink.