ys fancied myself indebted for the legacy of a
curious cribbage board, made of the finest Sienna marble, which her
maternal uncle (old Walter Plumer, whom I have elsewhere celebrated)
brought with him from Florence:--this, and a trifle of five hundred
pounds, came to me at her death.

The former bequest (which I do not least value) I have kept with
religious care; though she herself, to confess a truth, was never
greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essentially vulgar game, I have
heard her say,--disputing with her uncle, who was very partial to
it. She could never heartily bring her mouth to pronounce "_go_"--or
"_that's a go_." She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging
teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a five dollar stake),
because she would not take advantage of the turn-up knave, which would
have given it her, but which she must have claimed by the disgraceful
tenure of declaring "_two for his heels_." There is something
extremely genteel in this sort of self-denial. Sarah Battle was a
gentlewoman born.

Piquet she held the best game at the cards for two persons, though she
would ridicule the pedantry of the terms--such as pique--repique--the
capot--they savoured (she thought) of affectation. But games for two,
or even three, she never greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate,
or square. She would argue thus:--Cards are warfare: the ends are
gain, with glory. But cards are war, in disguise of a sport: when
single adversaries encounter, the ends proposed are too palpable.
By themselves, it is too close a fight; with spectators, it is not
much bettered. No looker on can be interested, except for a bet,
and then it is a mere affair of money; he cares not for your luck
_sympathetically_, or for your play.--Three are still worse; a mere
naked war of every man against every man, as in cribbage, without
league or alliance; or a rotation of petty and contradictory
interests, a succession of heartless leagues, and not much more hearty
infractions of them, as in tradrille.--But in square games (_she
meant whist_) all that is possible to be attained in card-playing is
accomplished. There are the incentives of profit with honour, common
to every species--though the _latter_ can be but very imperfectly
enjoyed in those other games, where the spectator is only feebly a
participator. But the parties in whist are spectators and principals
too. They are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not
want