However I do not think Mr.Romaine will feel highly complimented to know that you refused him because you dreaded he might become a drunkard.

You surely did not tell him so." "Yes I did, and I do not think that I would have been a true friend to him, had I not done so." "Oh! Belle, I never could have had the courage to have told him so." "Why not ?" "I would have dreaded hurting his feelings.

Were you not afraid of offending him ?" "I certainly shrank from the pain which I knew I must inflict, but because I valued his welfare more than my own feelings, I was constrained to be faithful to him.

I told him that he was drifting where he ought steer, that instead of holding the helm and rudder of his young life, he was floating down the stream, and unless he stood firmly on the side of temperance, that I never would clasp hands will him for life." "But Belle, perhaps you have done him more harm than good; may be you could have effected his reformation by consenting to marrying him." "Jeanette, were I the wife of a drunken man I do not think there is any depth of degradation that I would not fathom with my love and pity in trying to save him.

I believe I would cling to him, if even his own mother shrank from him.