onths. Ah! good luck; how
uncertain is good luck; how changeful is fortune; how soon is the best
prospect blighted by the frosts of adversity. In less than a month I had
lost more than I could pay, and then I gambled on for a living.

"My wife had but one child; her first and only one; an infant at her
breast; but there was a change came over her; for one had come over
me--a fearful one it was too--one not only in manner but in fortune too.
She would beg me to come home early; to attend to other matters, and
leave the dreadful life I was then leading.

"'Lizzy,' said I, 'we are ruined.'--'Ruined!' she exclaimed, and
staggered back, until she fell into a seat. 'Ruined!'

"'Ay, ruined. It is a short word, but expressive.'--'No, no, we are not
ruined. I know what you mean, you would say, we cannot live as we have
lived; we must retrench, and so we will, right willingly.'

"'You must retrench most wonderfully,' I said, with desperate calmness,
'for the murder must out.'--'And so we will; but you will be with us;
you will not go out night after night, ruining your health, our
happiness, and destroying both peace and prospects.'

"'No, no, Lizzy, we have no chance of recovering ourselves; house and
home--all gone--all, all.'--'My God!' she exclaimed.

"'Ay, rail on,' said I; 'you have cause enough; but, no matter--we have
lost all.'--'How--how?'

"'It is useless to ask how; I have done, and there is an end of the
matter; you shall know more another day; we must leave this house for a
lodging.'--'It matters little,' she said; 'all may be won again, if you
will but say you will quit the society of those who have ruined you.'

"'No one,' said I, 'has ruined me; I did it; it was no fault of any one
else's; I have not that excuse.'--'I am sure you can recover.'

"'I may; some day fortune will shower her favours upon me, and I live on
in that expectation.'--'You cannot mean that you will chance the
gaming-table? for I am sure you must have lost all there?'

"'I have.'--'God help me,' she said; 'you have done your child a wrong,
but you may repair it yet.'

"'Never!'--''Tis a long day! let me implore you, on my knees, to leave
this place, and adopt some other mode of life; we can be careful; a
little will do, and we shall, in time, be equal to, and better than what
we have been.'

"'We never can, save by chance.'--'And by chance we never shall,' she
replied; 'if you will exert yourself, we may yet retrieve ourselves.'