ood.

It had been explained to them how they might, all at once, make a
year's gain in the lottery; and it had become their custom always, at
the end of every month, to put aside one silver coin apiece, to buy a
lottery ticket with--one ticket each, not for the great, but for the
twenty-five-cent, prizes. Anne Marie would buy hers round about the
market; Jeanne Marie would stop anywhere along her milk course and buy
hers, and they would go together in the afternoon to stand with the
little crowd watching the placard upon which the winning numbers were
to be written. And when they were written, it was curious, Jeanne
Marie's numbers would come out twice as often as Anne Marie's. Not
that she ever won anything, for she was not lucky enough to have them
come out in the order to win; they only came out here and there,
singly: but it was sufficient to make old Anne Marie cross and ugly
for a day or two, and injure the sale of the onion-basket. When she
became bedridden, Jeanne Marie bought the ticket for both, on the
numbers, however, that Anne Marie gave her; and Anne Marie had to lie
in bed and wait, while Jeanne Marie went out to watch the placard.

One evening, watching it, Jeanne Marie saw the ticket-agent write out
the numbers as they came on her ticket, in such a way that they drew
a prize--forty dollars.

When the old woman saw it she felt such a happiness; just as she used
to feel in the old times right after the birth of a baby. She thought
of that instantly. Without saying a word to any one, she clattered
over the _banquette_ as fast as she could in her sabots, to tell the
good news to Anne Marie. But she did not go so fast as not to have
time to dispose of her forty dollars over and over again. Forty
dollars! That was a great deal of money. She had often in her mind,
when she was expecting a prize, spent twenty dollars; for she had
never thought it could be more than that. But forty dollars! A new
gown apiece, and black silk kerchiefs to tie over their heads instead
of red cotton, and the little cabin new red-washed, and soup in the
pot, and a garlic sausage, and a bottle of good, costly liniment for
Anne Marie's legs; and still a pile of gold to go under the
hearth-brick--a pile of gold that would have made the eyes of the
defunct husband glisten.

She pushed open the picket-gate, and came into the room where her
sister lay in bed.

"Eh, Anne Marie, my girl," she called in her thick, pebbly voice,
apparen