$ The Turning Point. t i The 4 o'clock train went speeding along the level line of the railroad one sunny afternoon, just 10 years ago, and among its passengers were two young and handsome men, who had met on the cars by chance, but who had been intimate friends at school and college, and who were intimate friends still, if one might judge by the fervor of their greeting and the earnest manner in which they con versed, without taking the least notice of any person around them. ■ At last the elder of the two, a tall, dark, young man, with large, dark eyes and jet black hair and whiskers, arose from his scat, took his traveling bag from the rack and began to shake the dust from his coat and to wipe it from his face with a cambric handker chief, as if his journey was drawing near its end. "Then you are sure that you won't come with me. Harry?" he asked, looking anxiously into the fair, frank face of his companion. "I cannot," was the low reply. "Well, at least remember what I have been saying to you today. Give it up, Harry—the drinking, gam bling, the folly of all kinds. Begin to save your money, instead of spending it all, as you do now, and as I used to do, and in three years, or perhaps sooner yet, you may be traveling this way or some other way, bound on my present errand, with a neat little home and a dear little wife waiting for you at the journey's end. It is worth far more than ail the rest, my boy. I know, for I've tried both ways." "Why, what nonsense it is to talk to me about, saving, George! Look there!" cried Moore. He drew out his pocketbook. In one compartment nestled a ten-dollar greenback. In the other were two one-dollar bills. In a third, a little crumpled roll of cur rency, and in the fourth, a tiny case filled with postage stamps. "Behold my worldly wealth!" said he, in a mocking tone. "There is all I have before the next quarter's salary is paid. And while I live in New York, I must spend the whole of my salary. I cannot save it. Expenses are too high." "Then do as I did," said his friend. "I found the temptations and expenses of New York life too much for me. I could not save, and what was worse, I fo"ind that I was giving way more and more to the habit which I want you to leave off, Henry. I gave up my place and went to yonder little town, wherein an uncle of mine lived. I stated my case to him. He helped me. He got me a situation in the leading store here, he took me to board at his house and watched over me like a father till I cared no more for drink. After that, it was easy enough to save, Henry, and I soon worked my way tip to home and happiness. Oddly enough, I started with only ten dollars in my purse. Bat I was far worse than you are. Cannot you get some thing to do in sonie quiet, country place like this, where you will be kept out of temptation as I was? Try it, old boy. Write to me a month hence, and if you have not found the place and the people to cure you by that time, I'll find them for you. Is that a bargain?" "Yes," said Henry Moore, speaking on the impulse of the moment. They parted. Henry Moore watched nis friend as he stepped into a waiting carriage at the station, and drove away to meet his bride upon his wed ding night. Then, as the train steamed slowly off again, he thrust his pocket book back into the breast of his coat, and leaning his cheek upon his hand, gazed moodily out upon the flying meadows and forests, while he mused upon his schoolfellow's happy fate. "The last time I saw him, he had been drinking heavily nearly all through the night," he thought. "Gambling, too, and losing. His face looked purple and flushed; his eyes were heavy and dull; his cheeks were bloated; his hand shook like the hand of an old man. How different now. He is as handsome and fresh-colored as he was in his boyhood. He is eager, alert, full of life, hope and happiness, While I —" a heavy sigh finished the reflection. The train sped on. The young man lest in painful memory of misspent hours, still leaned his forehead against the window frame, gazing on all that passed before him as if he saw it not. Suddenly, as the train decreased its speed again, and the warning bell be gan to ring, a tableau flashed before his eyes that roused him in a moment. For half an hour past their way had led through a dense pine forest, rising greenly on either side of the cars. But now there came a sunlit streak among the trees beyond his window, and in the long, val space thus formed he saw a lowly, but snug-looking, gray cottage, with vincshaded porches and portico, a green and level lawn, with a lake flashing brightly in the sun beyond it; and on the lawn a rosy, healthful girl of seventeen, standing with her arch, mischievous face turned toward the passing train, and her arms clasped grimly around the neck of a small, black pony, saddled and bridled, who seemed terribly frightened at the noise, yet perfectly docile to her voice and touch. Other figures filled the background. The farmer, stout and hearty, dressed in blue overalls, and wiping the pers piration from his brow, as he lifted his straw hat aside —a neatly dressed matron on the porch, shading her eyes with her hand, as she watched tho train; a great, blaci: Newfoundland dog, parading about in a dignified manner, with a lady's riding whip in his mouth, and a dapper young gentle man in a light, summer suit, approach ing the lady and her steed. He saw them all as one sees faces and figures in a vivid dream, and wondered almost audibly what "that fellow" was doing there; and then, as they plunged once more into the unbroken solitude of tho pines, that girl's face seemed to stand out visibly in the aii before him and accompanied him, like a smiling spirit of good omen, to his journey's end. Late that night, when, after eating supper and reading the evening paper, he went up to his room the face was there before him, smiling like a pic ture from the bare white wall. He had gone up there to make some alter ations in his dress before going out to get rid of the rest of his evening in the city streets; but the face detained him, held him there in the cheerless l'ourth-story chamber, even against his will. "How graceful she was!" he groaned out. "What a pretty—what a sweet face she had! How blue her eyes were! How brown her hair was and how it waved about her head and face like a little, soft, dark cloud of curls! She must have been ill lately, or she would not wear her hair like that; every other girl is piling chig nons up higher than the moon. And yet she looked the very picture of health. Her cheeks were as round and as rosy as the apples in her father's orchard. Perhaps she is too sensible to wear chignons and false hair. Per haps she don't care so much for dress as other women do. What did she wear? I can't remember. I only know it was some soft dun-colored material falling about her in soft folds, with out ruffling or paniers of any kind. And a blue ribbon at her throat—blue •as the 'bluets' —blue as her own sweet eyes! Oh, dear! If I could but meet a girl like that—a girl with 'no non sense about her,' as Mr. Toots would say," he added with a laugh—"a girl who would marry a poor man because she loved him, and who would go to work and help him build up his for tune and his house together. Why it would be the making of me!" He took out his pocketbook and looked again at the ten-dollar bill. "Shall I try it? Jerrold says he be gan with no more; and look how well he has done. Let me see. Here is enough to pay for my supper, lodging and breakfast, and my ticket back to the place where I saw her. That will leave me the roll of currency for small expenses, and the ten dollars for my sole capital till I find a place and work. Her father is a farmer, I know. And that chap in the gray summer suit hates hard work, i saw it in his face and walk. I'll do it. He can but refuse me at the worst, and I shall be able to look at that sweet face again. I'll go." You know he is not very strong, fa ther, and his hands have grown white and soft at college, and. as he says, he is not fit for the work," she was say ing when her father's growls ceased suddenly; and, looking up, she saw a tall, handsome, Saxon-faced and bright-eyed young fellow, dressed in homespun, taking off his straw hat to her and her father in the way that did not smack of country birth and training by any means. The light blue and the dark blue eyes looked straight into each other's depths for one be wildering moment. Then the girl turned away and walked out of tho field, with a sudden, vivid blush stain ing the whiteness of her throat and forehead; and the young fellow, gaz ing after her involuntarily, began his story to the amazed rarmer and asked for work. At 12 o'clock that day Jane Halliday. after giving the last touches to tho well-spread dinner-table, took the tin horn and went out on the side piazza to "call the folks" to their noonday meal. She saw the heads turn, and the bending forms straighten them selves as the echoes of the mellow blast floated over toward the distant hills, and lingering yet a moment felt her cheek grow hot again, when she saw the young man advancing with her father toward the house. "Here's a new hand, mother," sang out the farmer to his buxom wife, as they entered the kitchen together. "He came along to look for work just in the nick of time, after your dandified nephew cut and run for fear he should tan his cheeks. You'll make Dick's bed up for him tonight, Jane. He is worth his salt, I must own. and he shall stay here as long as he likes. Now, mother, dinner —hurry. Jenny, hurry!" They sat down to the table. Jane's chair was directly opposite that which the new hand occupied, and presently the farmer called out, wonderingly: "Salt in your coffee, Mr. Moore! Well, Ido vow! That id a queer taste of yours, anyhow!" "I drank it so as a child, but I think I'll give it up after today, as I am to do farming work," stammered the young man. scarcely knowing what he was saying and unwilling to own his blunder lest its cause might pos sibly be guessed. "Gracious!" said the farmer. But the good wife quietly changed the cup for another, properly sugared and creamed, and the new hand thanked her by a bow that set her marveling in her turn. "He don't look one bit like a farmer, Jane," she snid. watching them back into the field again after dinner. "He is as much of a gentleman as your Cousin Dick i« in spite of b'o common clothes. And yet he must take hold of the work pretty well or your father wouldn't be as pleased with him as he is." Jane made a brief reply and changed the subject as speedily as possible. She had seen beneath her long eye lashes how the stranger's eyes were fixed upon her when that mistake with the coffee occurred. "What a ridiculous excuse," she thought, smiling. And then a sudden recollection flashed across her mind with stunning emphasis and meaning. Was it a dream? Or was it real? That rush ing train —that open window —that moody look flashing into sudden brightness as it caught and answered her own laughing glance while the cars whirled by. No wonder the face seemed so strangely familiar to het in the farm fields that morning. But what —oh, Jane of the fair face and innocent eyes and softly clustering locks—what could it all mean? Cousin Dick returned no more to the farm that summer. But the new hand stayed and worked faithfully all through "haying time and harvest,'' much to the farmers delight. At the end of the season the farmer made the young man a liberal offer for the ensuing year. And thereupon ensued a long and confidential conversation between the two. "Give me twenty-four hours to make up my mind," said Moore, at last. "Tomorrow morning you shall have your answer." So. when the four o'clock train from the city thundered past the farm that evening the new hand stood on the lawn alone and watched it with thoughtful eyes. Taller and straightet he looked than when he first came to the lone pine lands, and there was a healthy flush on his cheek, beneath the sunburn, that told tales of a dif ferent, a nobler, a holier life, than the former one had ever been. The farmer was busy at the barn. The good housewife, in the kitchen, was hurrying onward her preparations for tea. and Jane, with a two-quart tin basin in her hand, came out of tho house and turned toward the garden as he looked that way. Her errand was for fruit for the supper table, but before the first handful of berries had rattled down upon the bottom of the basin, the girl started, listened a moment, and then turned crimson as the new hand came up beside her. The berries were neglected. He stood still a moment, then dropping basin and berries upon the grass, he held her by the hands. "Jane, your father has asked me to stay here and help him with another year," ho said. "He offers me good wages. And I am safe here—safe from many a temptation that you know nothing about—thank God. I am a better and a happier man foi my stay here this summer, but there is room for improvement yet. It rests with you to say if that improvement shall be made." "With me?" said Jane, glancing up at him with a gentle smile. "With you; with you alont?." "Then stay." He took a pocketboolc from the. breast of his coat and opened it. "Jane, you see that ten-dollar bill?" "Yes." "That marks the turning-point in my life. I was going headlong to de struction when a friend held me back. I had but ten dollars to begin the world with again if I gave up my place and salary in New York. Yet my friend advised it. It was what he had done, and in three years he had earned a home and a wife in another place. He had been as wild and as reckless as 1 was then, 4nd it was seeing what a little sober effort had done for him that encouraged me to try. I came here —and you know my life and thoughts and habits from that day. We have been happy here together, Jane." "Oh. very happy," was her reply. "But now there must be a change. I cannot goon in the old way any longer, Jane; your father likes me and I believe I may stay here forever so far as he and your mother are con cerned. Now, for their daughter. There is ten dollars. Jane, and there is what I have earned by sheer hard work these last six months added to it. I shall receive four times that sum another year from your father if I stay. Will it be enough, Jane for me and my wife?" She was silent. Bending down to look at her he saw that her eyes were full of tears. "Can't you like me, then?" he asked, in dismay. "Oh, it is not that. It is father and mother," she whispered. "I must not leave them." "There is no need, my love. I may tell you now that your father has given his consent, and your dear mother will not be long behind him. Oh, Jane, my darling! I found my hope, my joy and my salvation that day I came to the Lone Pine farm." "And not a single berry for supper!" bewailed Mrs. Halliday, when they re turned at last to the house. But a tearful smile succeeded the lament, as. after a brief whisper from Jane, she kissed and blesseu the "new-hand" as her prospective son-in-law.—New York News. Sliarkn Unce, that closes at the back appears to grow in favor week by week. This tasteful and stylish May Manton Jilt fStpL FANCY BLOUSE. model is eminently simple at the same time that it makes an admirable effect. The original is made of white peau de soio banded with black velvet ribbon, tiie yoke being of cream lace over white and the under-sleeves white Liberty silk; but all delicate colors are in vogue for afternoon and evening wear, and all soft finished silks and wool materials are appropriate. As shown the blouse matches the skirt, but the design suits tiie separate waist, worn with odd skirts, and the entire costume equally well. The simple lining is smoothly fitted and closes with the waist at the centre igfijSlfes t 3 4 c had. though rare! —a man who can cheerfully lead the speakers to feel at their ease, seize upon the good points and tactfully put right any little indiscretions into which the fervid five minutes' speakers may fall. "What total abstinence lias done for me" is a theme which "the brands plucked from the burn ing" can always use to good advantage. A Severe llettpcrlon. Most of the arguments in favor of the canteen which are now so industriously propagated by high army officials ress upon the assumption that the average sol dier is so confirmed in his drinking hab its that some sort of provision must be made by the Government for gratifying his appetite. That is about the severest reflection on the American soldier that could be made.—The Watchman. The Crusade iu Urief. The habit of alcoholism strong'y pre* disposes to the contraction and propaga> tion of tuberculosis. Baudran. of Beauvaise, has shown that the mortality from tuberculosis and that from alcoholism are nearly identical. Some parents who set intoxicating liquors upon the table wonder where their children learned to become drunkards. The American Journal of Education says: "There are many indications of a coming assault of the combined liquor in terests upon the law compelling the teaching of temperance iu the public schools.'