What am I to do?
To spare you pain I would sacrifice almost anything, but this humiliation is more than I am strong enough to encounter.

If, as you say, there has been intemperance in our family, it is not a secret locked up in your bosom.
Society knows all about the ancestry of its members, who and what the fathers and grandfathers were, and we have not escaped investigation.
Don't touch wine, you say.

Very well.

I go to Mrs.Birtwell's to-night.
Young and old, men and women, all are partakers, but I stand aloof--I, of all the guests, refuse the hospitality I have pretended to accept.
Can I do this without attracting attention or occasioning remark?
No; and what will be said?
Simply this--that I know my danger and am afraid; that there is in my blood the hereditary taint of drunkenness, and that I dare not touch a glass of wine.

Mother, I am not strong enough to brave society on such an issue, and a false one at that.