attention from the tumult of the storm. In sheer weariness, she gave up
contesting the matter; and, raising herself languidly on the sofa, said
she would try to play. "Nothing can make matters worse than they are,"
she thought, despairingly, as Arnold dealt the cards for her. "Nothing
can justify my inflicting my own wretchedness on this kind-hearted boy!"

Two worse players never probably sat down to a game. Anne's attention
perpetually wandered; and Anne's companion was, in all human
probability, the most incapable card-player in Europe.

Anne turned up the trump--the nine of Diamonds. Arnold looked at
his hand--and "proposed." Anne declined to change the cards. Arnold
announced, with undiminished good-humor, that he saw his way clearly,
now, to losing the game, and then played his first card--the Queen of
Trumps!

Anne took it with the King, and forgot to declare the King. She played
the ten of Trumps.

Arnold unexpectedly discovered the eight of Trumps in his hand. "What
a pity!" he said, as he played it. "Hullo! you haven't marked the King!
I'll do it for you. That's two--no, three--to you. I said I should lose
the game. Couldn't be expected to do any thing (could I?) with such
a hand as mine. I've lost every thing now I've lost my trumps. You to
play."

Anne looked at her hand. At the same moment the lightning flashed into
the room through the ill-closed shutters; the roar of the thunder burst
over the house, and shook it to its foundation. The screaming of some
hysterical female tourist, and the barking of a dog, rose shrill from