the rest of the time was telegraphing with her brilliant eyes all
sorts of funny messages to the party opposite, so that they were
in a state of perpetual giggle, not in keeping with whist.

Mr. Dimmerly soon bustled in, and, looking wistfully at the game
in progress, was about to propose that they form one likewise at
their table, for an evening without cards was to him a mild form
of purgatory. But Lottie anticipated him. Giving a signal to the
others and drawing down her face to portentous length, she said to
Hemstead, "I fear you do not approve of cards."

"You are correct, Miss Marsden," he replied, stiffly.

As he turned away, she glanced at the card-players with a look of
horror, as if they were committing sacrilege, and Harcourt had to
improvise another poor joke to account for their increasing merriment.

But Mr. Dimmerly looked at his nephew in dismay and some irritation.
"What under heaven can I now do, this long evening," he thought,
"but gape and talk theology?"

But Lottie, in the purpose to draw out and quiz her victim,
continued: "Really, Mr. Hemstead, you surprise me. Cards are the
staple amusement of a quiet evening in New York. I fear I have
been doing wrong all my life without knowing it."

"If you did not know you were wrong, you were not very guilty," he
replied, smiling.

"Yes, but now I do know, or at least from one who will be an