"Too expensive a pleasure for me," said Ellis. "In the first place, with me time is money, and, in the second place, I have no golden mint-drops to exchange for fast horses." "I have a fine animal at your service," replied the tempter. "Happy to let you use him at any time." "Much obliged for the offer; and when I can run away from business for a few hours, will avail myself of it." "What do you say to a ride this morning? I'm going a few miles over into Jersey, and should like your company above all things." "I hardly think I can leave the store to-day," replied Ellis. "Let me see: have I any thing in the way of a note to take up? I believe not." "You say yes, then?" "I don't know about that. It doesn't just seem right." "Nonsense! It is wonderful how this business atmosphere does affect a man's perceptions! He can see nothing but the dollar. Every thing is brought down to a money valuation." We will not trace the argument further. Enough that the tempter was successful, and that Ellis, instead of going to his store, rode out with Carlton. He was not, of course, home at his usual dinner-hour. It was between three and four o'clock when he appeared at his place of business, the worse for his absence, in almost every sense of the word. He had been drinking, until he was half stupid, and was a loser at the gaming-table of nearly six hundred dollars. A feeble effort was made by him to go into an examination of the business of the day; but he found it impossible to fix his mind thereon, and so gave up the attempt. He remained at his store until ready to close up for the day, and then turned his steps homeward. By this time he was a good deal sobered, and sadder for his sobriety; for, as his mind became clearer, he remembered, with more vividness, the events of the day, and particularly the fact of having lost several hundred dollars to his pretended friend, Carlton. "Whither am I going? Where is this to end?" was his shuddering ejaculation, as the imminent peril of his position most vividly presented itself. How hopelessly he wended his reluctant way homeward! There was nothing to lean upon there. No strength of ever-enduring love, to be, as it were, a second self to him in his weakness. No outstretched arm to drag him, with something of super-human power, out of the miry pit into which he had fallen; but, instead, an indignant hand to thrust him farther in. "God help me!" he sighed, in the very bitterness of a hopeless spirit; "for there is no aid in man." Ah! if, in his weakness, he had only leaned, in true dependence, on Him he thus asked to help him; if he had but resisted the motions of evil in himself, as sins against his Maker, and resisted them in a determined spirit, he need not have fallen; strength would, assuredly, have been given.