_Lady Townley_.--Sure I don't understand you now, my lord. What
ill company do I keep?

_Lord Townley_.--Why, at best, women that lose their money, and
men that win it; _or, perhaps, men that are voluntary bubbles at
one game, in hopes a lady will give them fair play at another._


`The facts,' says Mr Massey,[98] `confirm the theory.
Walpole's Letters and Mr Jesse's volumes on George Selwyn and his
Contemporaries, teem with allusions to proved or understood cases
of matrimonial infidelity; and the manner in which notorious
irregularities were brazened out, shows that the offenders did
not always encounter the universal reprobation of society.


[98] History of England, ii.


`Whist was not much in vogue until a later period, and was far
too abstruse and slow to suit the depraved taste which required
unadulterated stimulants.'

The ordinary stakes at these mixed assemblies would, at the
present day, be considered high, even at the clubs where a rubber
is still allowed.

`The consequences of such gaming were often still more lamentable
than those which usually attended such practices. It would
happen that a lady lost more than she could venture to confess to