Esther did not wait even until she had finished rearranging a disordered tress or two to reply. “He said ‘yes,’ only after I told him of your promise to me that you would not drink any more after we were married. He said you were the best born and best bred young man he had ever met--as if I didn’t already know it, you dear boy--but that he would rather bury me than let me marry a drinking man.” During the delivery of this short speech Fred looked by turns astonished, sober, flattered, sullen, indignant, and finally business-like and judicial. Then he said: “Darling, you must let me believe that your father is not fully posted about men who take an occasional glass. It’s no fault of his; he probably never tasted a drop of liquor in his life--he may never have felt the need of it. But believe me when I tell you that many of the smartest men drink sometimes, and are greatly helped by it. A business man whose daily life can’t help being often irregular, sometimes finds he can’t get along without something to help him through the day. Why, a few days ago I helped Sam Crayme, captain of the “Excellence,” you know, at a difficult bit of business; I worked thirty-six hours on a stretch, and made fifty dollars by it. That’s more money than any of your young temperance men of Barton ever make in a month, but I never could have done it if it hadn’t been for an occasional drink.” “But,” said Esther, “you know I don’t say it by way of complaint, Fred dear, but for a week after that you felt dull and didn’t say much, and didn’t care to read, and one evening when I expected you you didn’t come.” “But think how tired a man must be after such a job, Ettie,” pleaded Fred in an injured tone. “You poor old fellow, I know it,” said Esther; “but you wouldn’t have been so if you hadn’t done the work, and you yourself say you couldn’t have done the work if you hadn’t drunk the liquor, and you know you didn’t need the money so badly as to have had to do so much. Any merchant in the town would be glad to give you employment at which you would be your own natural self.” “And I would always be a poor man if I worked for our plodding, small-paying merchants,” said Fred. “Why, Ettie, who own the handsomest houses in town, who have the best horses, who set the best tables, whose wives and children wear the best clothes? Why, Moshier and Brown and Crayme and Wainright, every one of them moderate drinkers; I never in my life saw one of them drunk.”