Dottie's Temperance Sermon.
WELL, well! what did ail Dottie? She had positively refused to kiss her father for a whole week. He went to his work very early in the morning, long before her blue eyes were open, and did not come home till dark. Dottie always watched for him, and ran to meet him, and when he came in would sit on his knee; but when he tried to kiss her, she would shake her head so emphatically as to set the sunny curls dancing about her eyes, and then tuck her rosy face down on his shoulder. At last he grew almost angry, and one evening he put her down saying sternly, "I won't have any little girl that doesn't love me." Dottie went to her mother with a grieved look, and tears stealing into her eyes. "I do love my papa ever so much—five bushels." And by her childish mode of measuring affection, this seemed immense. "Then why did you treat him so?" asked her mother. "He does not see his little daughter all day; and when he comes home so tired she refuses to kiss him. Why is it?" "Because, because—" and here Dottie stopped. "Speak out, darling, don't be afraid; or suppose you whisper it to me; now—" and she bent down her head. Dottie put both chubby arms around her mother's neck, and putting a rosebud of a mouth close to her mother's ear, and in what she supposed was a whisper, said:— "He drink some medicine or somethin' in the even' time before he gets home, and it must be dreadful stuff, for it makes me feel sick to smell it when he puts her face close to mine—and that's all; and I do love papa." And she sobbed as if her loving little heart would break. As the wife's glance met that of her husband, his face crimsoned with a flush of shame. The secret was out. For the week past he had been in the habit of stopping a few moments at the house of a friend, who had just returned from a voyage to Europe, and had a great many interesting things to relate. He always took a glass of something strong at night, and insisted that Dottie's father should drink with him; and that was how it happened. But he never touched a drop afterward; the pure caresses of his innocent child were of more value to him than even the good-will of his friend; and the little Dot never had cause to refuse him his evening kiss.—Good Words.