last, and imprecated unspeakable curses on his head, if ever he should shuffle a card or rattle a dicebox again. He then doubled his former stake, and challenged anyone present to play against him. Grimsby instantly presented himself. Lowborough glared fiercely at him, for Grimsby was almost as celebrated for his luck as he was for his ill-fortune. However, they fell to work. But Grimsby had much skill and little scruple, and whether he took advantage of the other's trembling, blinded eagerness to deal unfairly by him, I cannot undertake to say; but Lowborough lost again, and fell dead sick.

`You'd better try once more,' said Grimsby, leaning across the table. And then he winked at me.

`I've nothing to try with," said the poor devil, with a ghastly smile.

`Oh, Huntingdon will lend you what you want,' said the other.

`No; you heard my oath,' answered Lowborough, turning away in quiet despair. And I took him by the arm and led him out.

`Is it to be the last, Lowborough?' I asked, when I got him into the street.

`The last,' he answered, somewhat against my expectation. And I took him home--that is, to our club-- for he was as submissive as a child, and plied him with brandy and water till he to look rather brighter-- rather more alive, at least.

`Huntingdon, I'm ruined!' said he, taking the third glass from my hand--he had drunk the others in dead silence.

`Not you!' said I. `You'll find a man can live without his money as merrily as a tortoise without its head, or a wasp without its body.'

`But I'm in debt,' said he--`deep in debt! And I can never, never get out of it!'

`Well, what of that? many a better man than you has lived and died in debt, and they can't put you in prison, you know, because you're a peer.' And I handed him his fourth tumbler.

`But I hate to be in debt!' he shouted. `I wasn't born for it, and I cannot bear it!'

`What can't be cured must be endured,' said I, beginning to mix the fifth.

`And then, I've lost my Caroline,' And he began to snivel then, for the brandy had softened his heart.

`No matter,' I answered, `there are more Carolines in the world than one.'

`There's only one for me,' he replied, with a dolorous sigh. `And if there were fifty more, who's to get them, I wonder, without money?'

`Oh, somebody will take you for your title; and then you've your family estate yet; that's entailed, you know,'

`I wish to God I could sell it to pay my debts,' he muttered.

`And then,' said Grimsby, who had just come in, `you can try again, you know. I would have one more chance if I were you. I'd never stop here.'

`I won't, I tell you!' shouted he. And he started up and left the room--walking rather unsteadily, for the liquor had got into his head. He was not so much used to it then, but after that, he took to it kindly to solace his cares.

`He kept his oath about gambling (not a little to the surprise of us all), though Grimsby did his utmost to tempt him to break it: but how he had got hold of another habit that bothered him nearly as much, for