he Choughs" liked nothing
so much as her game of cribbage in the evenings, and the board
lay ready on the little table by her elbow in the cozy bar, a
sure stepping-stone to her good graces. Tom somehow became an
enthusiast in cribbage, and would always loiter behind his
companions for his quiet game; chatting pleasantly while the old
lady cut and shuffled the dirty pack, striving keenly for the
nightly stake of sixpence, which he seldom failed to lose, and
laughingly wrangling with her over the last points in the game
which decided the transfer of the two sixpences (duly posted in
the snuffer-tray beside the cribbage-board) into his waistcoat
pocket or her bag, until she would take off her spectacles to
wipe them, and sink back in her chair exhausted with the pleasing
excitement.

Such an odd taste as it seemed, too, a bystander might reasonably
have thought, when he might have been employing his time so much
more pleasantly in the very room. For, flitting in and out of the
bar during the game, and every now and then stooping over the old
lady's shoulder to examine her hand, and exchange knowing looks
with her, was the lithe little figure of Miss Patty, with her
oval race, and merry eyes, and bright brown hair, and jaunty
little cap, with fresh blue ribbons of the shade of the St.
Ambrose colors. However, there is no accounting for tastes, and
it is fortunate that some like apples and some onions. It may
possibly be, too, that Miss Patty did not feel herself neglected,
or did not care about attention. Perhaps she may not have been
altogether unconscious that every least motion and word of hers
was noticed, even when the game was at its keenest. At any rate,
it was clear enough that she and Tom were on the best terms,
though she always took her aunt's part vehemently in any little
dispute which arose, and sometimes even came to the rescue at the
end, and recaptured the vanished sixpences out of the wrongful
grasp which he generally laid on them the moment the old lady
held out her hand and pronounced the word "game." One knows that
size has little to do with strength, or one might have wondered
that her little hands should have been able to open his fingers
so surely one by one, though he seemed to do all he could to keep
them shut. But, after all, if he really thought he had a right to
the money, he had always time to put it in his pocket at once,
instead of keeping his clenched hand on the table, and arguing
about