difference. I have always been taught to look upon cards with great
abhorrence. What may be right for you would be wrong for me."

"No," said positive Lottie, "that will not satisfy me. A thing is
either right or wrong. If you can prove to me that a quiet game of
cards is wrong, I won't play any more--at least I ought not," she
added hastily. "Because some vulgar and fast people gamble with
them is nothing. You will take a sleigh-ride with us to-morrow,
and yet loud jockeys bet and gamble over horses half the year."

Hemstead sprang up. His ungainliness disappeared, as was ever the
case when he forgot himself in excitement.

"Miss Marsden," he said, "what you say sounds plausible, but years
ago I saw the mangled corpse of a young suicide. He was an adept
at cards, and for aught I know had learned the game as your brother
might, at home. But away among strangers at the West that knowledge
proved fatal. He was inveigled into playing by some gamblers, staked
all his own money, then that committed to his trust. Having lost
everything but life, he threw that also down the abyss. He might
have been living to-day if he had known as little about cards as
I do."

His manner was so earnest, the picture called up so sad and tragic,
that even Lottie's red cheek paled a little, and the gigglers
became quiet. She only said, "He was very weak and foolish. I can't
understand such people."

"But the world is largely made up of the weak and foolish, who
need safeguards rather than temptations. And history would seem