he most benevolent smile in the world.

"My dear wife, this is my dear little brother Bela Karpathy. My dear
little brother, I recommend my dear wife to your kinsmanlike regard!"

Ah, this was the moment which he had so joyfully anticipated; this was
the exquisite vengeance, the thought of which had grown up in the heart
of the persecuted girl, and made the eyes of the gentle creature sparkle
so brightly.

The hunter had fallen into the snare--the snare that he himself had
laid. He had been hoodwinked, rejected, worsted utterly.

Abellino bowed stiffly, biting his lips hard all the time; he was as
white as the wall.

Then Squire John passed on and had himself specially introduced to
Monsieur Griffard, who expressed his intense gratification at finding
the Nabob in the possession of such excellent health.

But Abellino, the moment they had passed by, stuck his thumbs into the
corners of his vest, and humming a tune, and holding his head high, as
if he were in the best of humours, strolled from one end of the large
assembly room to the other, feigning ignorance of the fact that the
whispering and tittering that resounded on every side was so much scorn
and ridicule directed against him.

He hastened to the card-room.

As he passed through the door he heard how everybody there was laughing
and sniggering. Fennimore's shrill voice resounded through the din. The
moment they saw him the peals of laughter broke off suddenly, all signs
of hilarity disappeared, everybody tried to put on a solemn and
expectant look. Could anything in the world be more aggravating?

Abellino dragged a chair to the table and sat down among them. Why did
they not go on laughing; why did they not continue their conversation?
Why did Fennimore make such efforts to put on a solemn face, when his
mouth was regularly twitching?

The cards were dealt.

It was now Abellino's turn to keep the bank.

He began to lose.

Fennimore was sitting at the other end of the table, and he won
continually; he doubled, trebled, quadrupled his stakes; he doubled them
again, and still he won. Abellino began to lose his _sang-froid_ and get
flurried. He did not keep a proper watch on the stakes, and often swept
in the stakes of the winners and paid the losers. His mind was
elsewhere.

And now Fennimore again won four times as much as he had staked.

He could not restrain a laugh of triumph.

"Ha! ha! Monsieur de Karpathy, the proverb ill applies to you a