smoking makes them look so. If you would be handsome men, (and I know you all want to be that,) with a cheerful happy temper, and clear complexions and bright eyes, don't smoke! buy books, or apples, or nuts, or toys, or presents, or anything you like with your money, (on week days though, not on Sundays, Harry,) but don't buy tobacco or strong drink. That is my next subject. You know that when people take a good deal-a bad deal, I mean-of beer, or cider, or wine, or spirit, it makes them unable to walk straight, and very often they fall flat on the pavement, or in the street, and there lie 'till sometimes policemen fetch a stretcher and take them home: how disgraceful it is! I am sure you boys don't want to look like that: you laugh at the drunkard and mimic his queer step, but you don't wish to look so foolish and so disgusting when you are men: kind boys will feel too sorry to laugh, and wise boys will think to themselves," how can I prevent myself from ever being like that man?"

I will tell you: never touch what has made him so: keep your mouth tightly shut against beer, or anything that can make you tipsy; it is quite easy to do so: if all the people you know tried to make you eat a lot of poor nuts, you wouldn't do it; or if they tried to make you eat stale fish, or any disagreeable thing of that kind, you would shake your head, and declare you couldn't, very quickly. The drink is as bad for you as either of those; it will injure you because it contains a poisonous matter that only excites you, and neither nourishes you, nor quenches your thirst. It is so much better never to begin to do anything wrong, than to leave off when you have begun : just speak kindly to one of the poor drunkards you know, and ask him why he doesn't leave off getting drunk, and become a sober man? and he will say, "it's easy to talk, but I can't give up the drink." Don't become like that, the slaves of beer and ale and rum, but remain free-hearted and happy-hearted boys and men as long as you live. We want you not only to keep from drink and tobacco yourselves, but to ask others to do the same, and form yourselves into a society, to show on which side you are, whether you mean to be sober or drunken men when you grow up. Now, I expect you know what I wish to advise you, for you are fine hands at guessing: "Bands of Hope!" is that what you are saying? you are right then, I want you all to be Band of Hope boys, to keep from drinking and smoking yourselves, and to persuade others to do so too, so that if I live 'till you are all young men, I may find teetotalism on every hand; teetotal judges, and doctors, and lawyers, and ministers, and grocers, and drapers, and butchers and bakers, and teetotal carpenters and masons, and shoemakers, boatmen, soldiers and sailors; no more drunken men falling about the pathway, no more public houses to tempt the fathers to spend what they ought to carry home, and a great deal happier faces to be seen almost everywhere, that is what your becoming Band of Hope boys will help to do.

Now I think I am tiring you with this long letter, but I am going to say a few words more; don't gamble: I was so surprised and so ashamed to see some nice boys who help our boatmen, gambling the other day

whilst they waited to be hired; and some boys play marbles, not for fun, but in order to get them away from those who don't know the game so well, and that kind of thing often leads them to what I spoke about first of all,-fighting.

What nice boys you will be if you neither fight, gamble, drink, nor smoke. I hope then, you will keep a very strict watch over your mouths, and never let a bad word come out of them. I have heard of a lady who always sponged her little child's tongue with pure cold water, when she had spoken falsely or rudely, to make it clean again—I am afraid some of you boys would need soap as well.

If you are all that I wish you to be, you will be gentlemanly boys, no matter whether you wear fine cloth clothes, or smock frocks, and 1 hope you will remember that gentlemanly boys are polite to ladies, and also polite to girls; they don't push them rudely aside to get the best place, and leave them the worst; they treat them as if it was their duty to take care of them, and give them the greatest pleasure, and show them the greatest kindness possible.

Now this is not a letter to the girls, so I have not said what they ought to be and to do; I have only told you your side of the question; perhaps I shall write to them another time.

Now good-bye, my dear boys! May God bless you, and help you! “whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, to do all to the glory of God."

Your affectionate Friend,

Plymouth.

M. A. PAULL.

THE GREENGROCER'S STORY.

"Well, my Jessie, you're not like yourself to-night. What makes you so dull, I would say sad?"

"Oh! James, I do feel very sad; my poor sister Mary, whose sorrowful end you've heard about, was brought back to my thoughts this afternoon very painfully, and ever since I have been in deep distress, from fear that you might carry out what you were proposing about the Burnside cottage. Promise me that you'll have nothing to do with it?”

"What's come over you now, wee wifie? I thought you were as fond of the proposal as I was ?"

"Ay! but I had not thought about it further than of the profits. I have other feelings now. What if our little Jeannie should become like

my sister Mary, or like her I heard of to-day ?"

"I don't wish to hurt you, dear; but you know that Mary was—I've heard you say yourself-soft, as one would say, a little giddy and weak. But what have you been hearing, that's put you in such a state as this?"

"Maybe, poor Mary was weak, but all who go the same road are not So. It's a pity you're only to get the story at second hand; for I'm sure you would have felt sad too, if you had heard himself telling it, though you had no sister Mary and her misery to think about."

"But who's himself? Come away Jessie mine, I'll trust your second hand account."

I daresay

"Don't treat it so lightly, and I'll tell you as well as I can. you may remember the green-grocer's shop at yon corner of Sauchiehall street-"

"Oh! it was in Glasgow, was it? Glasgow's wicked enough no doubt, quite different from G

he asked

"Stop a little. It was in Glasgow I heard the story, but it had to do with G, and nearer us than you imagine. I went into that little shop on my way to the train coming home, to buy some nice grapes I saw in the window, for Jeannie; aud I bade the old man,-what a fine looking person he must have been in his younger days, but so cheerless and wearyy-like now,—I bade him wrap them carefully up, for they were to be carried all the way to G. When I mentioned Gif I lived there, and said it would be greatly altered since he saw it. Forty odd years it was since he had left it, and he could never bear the thought of coming again to visit it. The east end, where he had lived, just ayont the brig,' that's where we are now James, was but a straggling row of houses, newly named "Main street." In his time there were but few shops, he said; and when I mentioned that the place had so much extended that in the line of Main street there were some twelve or fourteen spirit shops, he shook his head, and after a little, murmured, almost sobbing, the first of the twelve has been the cloud and curse of my life.' I could not help feeling interested in the old man, and when he asked me if I had time to hear his short story, saying that to tell it would perhaps lighten his spirits, I very willingly consented."

6

By the time Jessie had reached this point in her narration, James also had begun to show signs of strong interest; and presuming that others may now also be willing to lend an ear, we shall take the liberty of introducing the old green-grocer himself to tell his own tale. It was a tale of love and joy, of ambition, temptation, sin, heart-breaking, disgrace, disease, and death. There was nothing in it uncommon, nay, even yet the records of humanity can show but too many bearing the same miserable family resemblance; but it had created one enemy, staunch and stern, to the drinking system and the drink traffic alike, and its recital may create others still, therefore it is now repeated. The old man proceeds: 'I am melancholy now, shrivelled too, and bent, but the time has been when the lasses pointed to me as the braw gardener from Dand when I could join wi' the merriest in laughing away the hours. I was five and twenty years of age, I never knew a care, and, but for one thing, I might have led another life than the miserable, purposeless existence I have spent. My father had taught me his own trade, and when I got the place at D -, I set myself at once to show what I could do. My flower-garden and green-house, then not so common as now, were the admiration of the whole district, and many were the visitors that came to see my plants while the family were on their yearly visit to London. Among the rest a brother of the gamekeeper's came up from G- with his wife and only daughter, very often on a Saturday night, staying over

Till

the Sabbath, and going to church with us to the now famous K Liza Gordon, the daughter, was the best looking woman in G—. It was the opinion of others beside me. No doubt many of the older residenters about the Main Street will remember her, and they'll tell you, it wasn't merely an old man's past fancy. For me, at any rate, I've never seen one that could compare with her then nor since. She was like a queen. And she was, when I first knew her, as good as she was bonny. After a year or two, during which we had become lovers, and had vowed everlasting love, I got a situation as gardener to a nobleman, whose place was some distance from G- It was arranged that we should be married as soon as I could get a house put in order to receive my bride. Alas for the hope! Doomed it was to the bitterest disappointment. In spite of all that happened, Liza, I still to this hour believe, loved me with her whole heart; but she was unhappily entangled in the meshes of a net, that she could not break through; and hence the misery. Shortly after I left D, Mrs. Gordon, her mother, was seized with a lingering illness, that made her so helpless that her husband could no longer be out of the house. He had to give up his work. But without some source of income, it was impossible the family could be supported. Gordon's house, which went by the name of Burnside Cottage, he had built himself. There was a little debt on it, which he had gradually been paying off while he continued at work. Anxious to keep

his own comfortable home, for the sake of his invalid wife, to avoid selling it, he was persuaded to embark in the spirit business as being a profitable one, and one that could be decently conducted in the cottage, where there was plenty of accommodation without either taking him from home, or causing any undue stir about Mrs. Gordon's sick-bed. Gordon's determination to open a public-house in the cottage had been formed during my absence at Lord -'s, my marriage to Liza having been postponed indefinitely on account of her mother's illness.

"The first public-house that was opened in the district, Burnside soon became extensively patronized. So busy often did Gordon find himself that he was compelled to call in the assistance of Liza to meet the calls of his visitors. This had an unanticipated effect Liza's beauty and good humour became a great attraction. Trade pressed in upon the cottage, and soon Gordon not only paid off the bond on his house, but added considerable extra accommodation to his premises. Mrs. Gordon, after a while, got well, and was able to lend a helping hand now and again. This I learned through my correspondence with Liza, which had hitherto been kept up with undiminished ardour on both sides; and I made it a plea for the speedy celebration of our marriage. Objections, however, were lodged in bar of such a proceeding. Gordon pleaded his wife's still feeble health as a reason for delay; but it appeared to me, from the tone of his communication, that he was less cordial towards me than I had reason to expect; so, getting leave of absence, I hastened to Gto learn exactly

what were our prospects. A cool reception by her father prepared me for what I afterwards learned particularly from Liza herself. Increasing means had created the desire for yet more, and familiarity with drink and

drinking had already so far hardened Gordon's heart, that he inclined to make everything subserve the prosperity of his business. Even the happiness of his child must yield to this. His case was not singular in this. It was simply the natural effect of his trade, as is universally witnessed. I appealed, and begged, and protested, and Liza wept, and Mrs. Gordon urged, but all was of no avail. Liza was needed in the house, and her father was inexorable. Nor could I obtain any promise as to when we might hope for a more favourable decision. Instead of this, I got a hint before I left G that Gorden had now other views for his daughter. The poor gardener was now no match for the child of the prosperous publican.

"A month or two of unsatisfactory correspondence followed my return home, at the end of which I received a strangely written letter from Liza, closing our engagement without offering any explanation. About the same time I heard from a friend that there were strange rumors about the cottage, which was now regularly visited by many of the dissipated youth about the town. Liza was also said to be getting remarkably gay and sometimes boisterous in her manners, her eyes unnaturally bright, and her cheeks too red to be called rosy or the hue of health. In short, it was said she was getting to like her father's wares too well.

"The reports were all true. And with the love of drink, love of me died away, till she could flirt with every appearance of enjoyment with any one that offered. Twelve months passed away, not without many ineffectual efforts on my part to reach, and, if possible, to restore poor Liza. My heart bled for my lost love. Bitterly I mourned the sad change that clouded now both her prospects and mine. Again, with a little hope, I visited G, but my first visit to the cottage told me that remonstrance was unavailing. Liza was to be married, so said her mother, who was now even more callous than her husband, to the son of a merchant living at the West-End. The gardener was thus finally discarded.

"The merchant's son was a scoundrel. The marriage to which Miss Gordon, as she was now called, had consented, not from any love or even respect for the suitor, but simply from vanity and ambition, feelings that had sprung up in her spirit under the fulsome flattery to which she was subjected in the course of her attendance on visitors to the Burnside,— the marriage was put off from time to time, till it appeared doubtful whether the youth had any such purpose in view at all. Liza's health at last appeared to be failing, and painful surmises began to be entertained about her. Again it was true. She had fallen, the seducer's victim indeed, but prepared for him by drink. Drink, too, that wrought the ruin, she now used to screen her shame from herself. The expected husband ceased his visits. The cottage business generally declined. Gordon charged on Liza's "folly " his diminished gains. She fled from his house, and in a few weeks was living a life of open infamy in a neighbouring town.

'In the meantime, I had sunk into melancholy spirits. My duties were neglected, and my situation was handed over to another. I went