Ann Holland was a great favorite with Mrs. Bolton. The elderly, old-fashioned woman held firmly to all old-fashioned ways; knew her duty to God and her duty to her neighbor, as taught by the Church Catechism, and faithfully fulfilled them to the best of her power. She ordered herself lowly and reverently to all her betters, especially to the widow of an archdeacon. No new-fangled, radical notions, such as her drunken brother picked up, could find any encouragement from her. Mrs. Bolton always enjoyed an interview with her, so marked was her deference. She had occasionally condescended to visit Ann Holland in her kitchen, and sit on the projecting angle of the three-cornered chair, a favor duly appreciated by her delighted hostess. Mr. Chantrey ran in often, as he was passing by, partly because he felt a real friendship, for the true-hearted, struggling old maid, and partly to see after her good-for-nothing brother. As Ann Holland had said herself, she was ready to go through fire and water for the sake of these friends and patrons of hers, whose kindness was the brightest element in her life.

After much tearful deliberation, she received upon the daring step of going to Bolton Villa, on an errand to Mrs. Bolton, with a vague hope that she might discover how false this cruel scandal was. There was a bridle of Mrs. Bolton's in the shop, which had been sent for a new curb, and she would take it home herself. Early the next afternoon, therefore. she clad herself in her best Sunday clothes, and made her way slowly along the streets toward the church. It was but slowly for she rarely went out on a week day, when her neighbors' shops were open; and there were too many attractions in the windows for even her anxiety and consciousness of a solemn mission to resist altogether.

The church and the rectory looked so peaceful amid the trees, just tinged with the hues of autumn, that Ann Holland's spirits insensibly revived. There was little sign of life about the rectory, for no one was living in it at present but Mr. Warden, the clergyman who had taken Mr. Chantrey's duty. Ann Holland opened the church-yard gate and strolled pensively up among the graves to the porch, that she might rest a little and ponder over what she should say to Mrs. Bolton. There was not a grave there that she did not know; those lying under many of the grassy sods were as familiar to her as the men and women now in full life in the neighboring town. Just within sight, near the vestry window was a little mound covered with flowers, where she had seen a little child of David and Sophy Chantrey's laid to rest. A narrow path was worn up to it; more bare and trodden than before Mr. Chantrey had gone away. Ann Holland knew as well as if she had seen her, that the poor solitary mother had worn the grass away.

The church door was open; for Mr. Warden had chosen to make the vestry his study, and had intimated to all the parish that there he might generally be found if any one among them wished to see him in any difficulty or sorrow. Though this was well known, no one of Mr. Chantrey's parishioners had gone to him for counsel; for he was a grave, stern, silent man, whose opinion it was difficult to guess at and impossible to fathom. He was unmarried, and kept no servant, except the housekeeper who had been left in charge of the rectory. All society he avoided, especially that of women. His abruptness and shyness in their presence was painful both to himself and them. To Mrs. Bolton, however, he was studiously civil, and to Sophy, his friend's wife, he would gladly have shown kindness and sympathy, if he had only known how. He often watched her tracing the narrow footworn track to her baby's grave, and he longed to speak some friendly words of comfort to her, but none came to his mind when they encountered each other. No one in Upton, except Ann Holland, had seen, as he had, how thin and wan her face grew; nor had any one noticed as soon as he had done the strangeness of her manner at times, the unsteadiness of her step, and the flush upon her face, as she now and then passed to and fro under the yew-trees. But he had never had the courage to speak to her at such moments; and there was only a mournful suspicion and dread in his heart, which he did his best to hide from himself.

This afternoon Mrs. Bolton had sought him in the vestry, where he had been silently brooding over his parish and its sins and sorrows, in the dim, green light shining through the lattice window, which was thickly overgrown with ivy. Mrs. Bolton was a handsome woman still, always handsomely dressed, as became a wealthy archdeacon's widow. Her presence seemed to fill up the little vestry; and as she occupied his old, high-backed chair, Mr. Warden stood opposite to her, looking down painfully and shyly at the floor on which he stood, rather than at the distinguished personage who was visiting him.

"I come to you," she said, in a decisive, emphatic voice, "as a clergyman, as well as my nephew's confidential friend. What I say to you must go no farther than ourselves. We have no confessional in our church, thank Heaven! but that which is confided to a clergyman, even to a curate, ought to be as sacred as a confession."

"Certainly," answered Mr. Warden, with painful abruptness.

"Sacred as a confession!" repeated Mrs. Bolton. "I must tell you, then, that I am in the greatest trouble about my nephew's wife. You know how ill she was last winter, after he went away. A low, nervous fever, which hung over her for months. She would not listen to my telling David about it, and, indeed, I was reluctant to distress and disturb him about a matter that he could not help. But she is very strange now; very strange and flighty. Possibly you may have observed some change in her?"

"Yes," he replied, still looking down on the floor, but seeing a vision of Sophy pacing the beaten track to the little grave under the vestry window.

"When she was at the worst," pursued Mrs. Bolton, "and I had the best advice in London for her, she was ordered to take the best wine we could get. I told Brown to bring out for her use some very choice port, purchased by the archdeacon years ago. She must have perished without it; but unfortunately—I speak to you as her pastor, in confidence—she has grown fond of it."

"Fond of it?" repeated Mr. Warden.

"Yes," she answered, emphatically; "I leave the cellar entirely in Brown's charge; a very trusty servant; and I find that Mrs. Chantrey has lately been in the habit of getting a great deal too much from him. But she will take anything she can get that will either stupefy or excite her. She never writes to David until her spirits are raised by stimulants of one kind or another. It is a temptation I cannot understand. I take a proper quantity, just as when the archdeacon was alive, and I never think of exceeding that. I need no more, and I desire no more. But Mrs. Chantrey grows quite excited, almost violent at times. It makes me more anxious than words can express."

There was a long pause, Mr. Warden neither lifting his head nor opening his mouth. His pale face flushed a little, and his lips quivered. David Chantrey was his dearest friend, and an almost intolerable sense of shame and dread kept him silent. His wife, of whom he always spoke so tenderly in all his letters to him! The very spot where he was listening to this charge against her, David's vestry, seemed to deepen the shame of it, and the unutterable sorrow, if it should be true.

"What would you counsel me to do?" asked Mrs. Bolton, after a time. "Must I write to my nephew and tell him?"

"Do!" he cried, with sudden eagerness and emphasis; "do! Take the temptation out of her way at once. Let everything of the kind be removed from the house. Let no one touch it, or mention it in her presence. Guard her as you would guard a child from taking deadly poison."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Mrs. Bolton. "Have no wine in my house? You forget my station and its duties, Mr. Warden, I must give dinner parties occasionally; I must allow beer to my servants. It is absurd. Nobody could expect me to take such a step as that."

"Listen to me," he said, earnestly, and with an authority quite at variance with his ordinary shyness. "I do not venture to hope for any other remedy. I have known men, ay, and women, who have not dared to pass close by the doors of a tavern for fear lest they should catch but the smell of it, and become brutes again in spite of themselves. Others have not dared even to think of it. If Mrs. Chantrey be falling into this sin, there is no other course for you to pursue than to banish it from your table, and, if possible, from your house. It is better for her to die, if needs be, than to live a drunkard."

"A drunkard!" echoed Mrs. Bolton. "I am sure I never used such a word about Sophy. I cannot believe it possible that my nephew's wife, a clergyman's wife, could become a drunkard, like a woman of the lowest classes! And I cannot understand how you, a clergyman, could seriously propose so extraordinary a step. Why, there is no danger to me; nobody could ever suspect me of being fond of wine. I have taken it in moderation all my life, and I cannot believe it is my duty to give it up altogether at my age."

"Very possibly it has never been your duty before," answered Mr. Warden, "and now I urge it, not for your own sake, but for hers. She has fallen into the snare blindfolded, and you can extricate her, though at some cost to yourself. I feel persuaded you can induce her to abstain, if you will do so yourself. You call yourself a Christian—"

"I should think there can be no doubt about that," she interrupted, indignantly; "the archdeacon never expressed any doubt about it, and surely I may depend upon his judgment."

"Forgive me," said Mr. Warden. "I ought to have said you are a Christian, and a Christian is one who follows his Lord's example."

"Who drank wine himself, and blessed it," interposed Mrs. Bolton, in a tone of triumph.

"The great law of whose life was self-sacrifice," he pursued. "If one of his brethren or sisters had been a drunkard, can you think of him filling up his own cup with wine and drinking it, as they sat side by side at the same table?"

"I should be shocked at imagining anything so presumptuous, not to call it blasphemous," she said. "We can only go by the plain words of Scripture, which tell us that He turned water into wine, and that He drank wine Himself. I am not afraid of going by the plain words of Scripture."

"But we have only fragments of His history," replied Mr. Warden, "and only a few verses of His teachings. Would you say that Paul had more of the spirit of self-sacrifice than Christ? Yet he said, 'It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth.' And again, 'If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth.' If the servant spoke so, what do you think the Master would have answered if any one had asked Him, 'Lord, what shall I do to save my brother from drunkenness?' It will be a self-denial to you; people will wonder at it, and talk about you; yet I say, if you would truly follow your Lord and Saviour, there is no choice for you. You can save a soul for whom Christ died; and is it possible that you can refuse to do it?"

"I thought," said Mrs. Bolton, "that you would expostulate with her, and warn her as her pastor; and I cannot but believe that, now I have made it known to you, you are responsible for her—at least more responsible than I am. You must use your influence with her; and if she is deaf to reason, we have done all we could."

"I cannot accept the responsibility," he answered, in a tone of pain. "If she were dwelling under my roof, it would be mine; but I cannot take your share of it. As your pastor, I place your duty before you, and you cannot neglect it without peril. As a snare to her soul it has become an accursed thing in your household; and I warn you of it most earnestly, beseeching you to hear in time to save yourself, and her, and David from misery!"

"Mr. Warden," exclaimed Mrs. Bolton, "I am astonished at your fanaticism!"

She had risen from her chair, and was about to sail out of the vestry with an air of outraged dignity, when Mr. Warden said, in a low tone, and with a heavy sigh, "See, there she is!"

Mrs. Bolton paused and turned toward the window, which overlooked the little grave of her nephew's child, who had been very dear to herself. Sophy had just sunk down beside it. There was a slight strangeness and disorder about her appearance, which no stranger might have noticed, but which could not fail to strike both of them. She looked dejected and unhappy, and hid her face in her hands, as though she felt their gaze upon her. The clergyman laid his hand upon Mrs. Bolton's arm with an unconscious pressure, and looked earnestly into her clouded face.

"Look!" he said. "In Christ's name, I implore you to save her."

"I will do what I can," she answered impatiently, "but I cannot take your way to do it; it is irrational."

"There is no other way," he said mournfully, "and I warn you of it."