venings; for the days there were pleasures
enough too, though of a simpler kind, and more profitable,
perhaps, for our poor little Madelon, in her gay unconscious
dance through that mad Vanity Fair, innocent though it was for
her as yet.

Except on some special emergency, M. Linders rarely went to
the gambling tables during the day. He had a theory that
daylight was prejudicial to his prosperity, and that it was
only at night that he could play there with any fair chance of
success; but he not unfrequently had other business of a
similar nature on hand to occupy his mornings and afternoons;
and when he was engaged or absent, Madelon, with the happy
adaptability of a solitary child, had no difficulty in amusing
herself alone with her toys, and picture-books, and dolls. At
other times, when her father was at leisure, there would be
walks with him, long afternoons spent in the gay Kursaal
gardens, listening to the bands of music; and on idle days,
which with M. Linders were neither few nor far between,
excursions perhaps into the country, sometimes the two alone,
but more frequently accompanied by one or two of M. Linders'
companions. There they would dine at some rustic Gasthof, and
afterwards, whilst her father and his friends smoked, drank
their Rhine wine, and brought out the inevitable cards and
dice in the shady, vine-trellised garden, Madelon, wandering
about here and there, in and out, through yard and court, and
garden and kitchen, poking her small nose everywhere, gained
much primary information on many subjects, from the growing of
cabbages to the making sauerkraut--from the laying of eggs by
ever-hopeful hens, to their final fulfilment of a ruthless
destiny in a frying-pan. In return, she was not unwilling to
impart to the good Hausfrau, and her troop of little ones and
retainers, many details concerning her town life; and might
sometimes be found, perched on the kitchen table, relating
long histories to an admiring audience, in which the blue silk
frocks and tall partners made no small figure, one may be
sure.

It was a golden childhood. Even in after years, when, reading
the history of these early days in a new light, she suffered a
pang for almost every pleasure she had then enjoyed, even then
Madelon maintained that her childhood had been one of
unclouded happiness, such as few children know. The sudden
changes of fortune, from splendour to poverty of the shabbiest
description, the reckless, dishones