"I am afraid of you, John. You are such an old offender on the score of drunkenness, that I have no confidence in your power to keep the pledge." "Then what _shall_ I do!" the poor wretch exclaimed, in tones that made the heart of the old man thrill--for nature and pathos were in them. "Now that I am trying in earnest to do better, no one will give me a word of encouragement, nor a helping hand. Heaven help me!--for I am forsaken of man." Mr. Lankford stood thoughtful and irresolute for some moments. At length, he said-- "John, if you will bring me a certificate from Mr. R--, that you have signed the total-abstinence pledge, I will give you another trial. But if you disappoint me again, you and I are done for ever." The countenance of Jarvis brightened up instantly. He turned quickly away, without reply, and hurried off to the store of Mr. R--, the secretary of the society he had joined. The certificate was, of course, obtained. "And you have joined, sure enough, John," Mr. Lankford said, in a changed tone, as he glanced over the certificate. "Indeed I have, Mr. Lankford." "And you seem in earnest." "If I was ever in earnest about any thing in my life, I am in earnest now." "Keep to your pledge, then, John, and all will be well. While you were a sober man, I preferred you to any journeyman in my shop. Keep sober, and you shall never want a day's work while I am in business." The poor man was now shown his place in the shop, and once again he resumed his work, though under a far different impulse than had, for years, nerved him to action. Two hours brought his regular dinner-time, when Jarvis, who began to feel the want of food, returned home, with new and strange feelings about his heart. One impulse was to tell his wife what he had done, and what he was doing. But then he remembered how often he had mocked her new springing hopes--how often he had promised amendment, and once even joined a temperance society, only to relapse into a lower and more degraded condition. "No, no," he said to himself, after debating the question in his mind, as he walked towards home; "I will not tell her now. I will first present some fruit of my repentance. I will give such an assurance as will create confidence and hope." Mrs. Jarvis did not raise her eyes to the face of her husband, as he entered. The sight of that once loved countenance, distorted and disfigured, ever made her heart sick when she looked upon it. Jarvis seated himself quietly in a chair, and held out his hands for his youngest child, not over two years old, who had no consciousness of his father's degradation. In a moment the happy little creature was on his knee. But the other children showed no inclination to approach.