hich they told me was so superbe."

"Methinks," replied the man, "that ours are not precisely the
circumstances in which such spectacles are amusing."

"Nay, Tyrrell," said the woman, as taking his arm they walked on
together a few paces before me, "nay, we are quite rich now to what we
have been; and, if you do play again, our two hundred pounds may swell
into a fortune. Your losses have brought you skill, and you may now turn
them into actual advantages."

Tyrrell did not reply exactly to these remarks, but appeared as if
debating with himself. "Two hundred pounds--twenty already gone!--in a
few months all will have melted away. What is it then now but a respite
from starvation?--but with luck it may become a competence."

"And why not have luck? many a fortune has been made with a worse
beginning," said the woman.

"True, Margaret," pursued the gambler, "and even without luck, our fate
can only commence a month or two sooner--better a short doom than a
lingering torture."

"What think you of trying some new game where you have more experience,
or where the chances are greater than in that of rouge et noir?" asked
the woman. "Could you not make something out of that tall, handsome man,
who Thornton says is so rich?"

"Ah, if one could!" sighed Tyrrell, wistfully. "Thornton tells me,
that he has won thousands from him, and that they are mere drops in his
income. Thornton is a good, easy, careless fellow, and might let me into
a share of the booty: but then, in what games can I engage him?"

Here I passed this well-suited pair, and lost the remainder of their
conversation. "Well," thought I, "if this precious personage does starve
at last, he will most richly deserve it, partly for his designs on the
stranger, principally for his opinion of Thornton. If he was a knave
only, one might pity him; but a knave and fool both, are a
combination of evil, for which there is no intermediate purgatory of
opinion--nothing short of utter damnation."

I soon arrived at Mr. Thornton's abode. The same old woman, poring
over the same novel of Crebillon, made me the same reply as before; and
accordingly again I ascended the obscure and rugged stairs, which seemed
to indicate, that the road to vice is not so easy as one generally
supposes. I knocked at the door, and receiving no answering
acknowledgment, opened it at once. The first thing I saw was the dark,
rough coat of Warburton--that person's back was turned to me, and he
w