Sometime she had read a tale in which one Howard Melville had gone to the great city and wrecked a career of much promise by accepting a glass of something from the hands of a beautiful but thoughtless girl, pampered child of the banker with whom he had secured a position.

For a dread moment Marcella seemed to recall that the fatal draught was named "punch." But after a tentative sip of the compound at hand, she decided that it must have been something else--doubtless "a glass of sparkling wine." For this punch before her was palpably of a babe's innocence.

Indeed it tasted rather like an inferior lemonade.

But it was cold, and Marcella tossed off a second cup of it.

She could make better lemonade herself, and she murmured slightingly of the stuff to Aunt Delia McCormick.
"It wants more lemons and more sugar," said Marcella, firmly.