na, and some curious
facts relating to the optic machinery of water-fleas, as lately
discovered by a great naturalist.

Unfortunately for science, the game had now begun, and the players were
curiously indifferent as to the visual organs of water-fleas.

The game went on merrily till the pearly lights of dawn began to creep
through the chinks of Lady Kirkbank's yellow curtain. Everybody seemed
gay, yet everybody could not be winning. Fortune had not smiled upon
Lesbia's cards, or on those of her partner. The Smithson and Haselden
firm had come to grief. Lesbia's little ivory purse had been emptied of
its three or four half-sovereigns, and Mr. Smithson had been
capitalising a losing concern for the last two hours. And the play had
been fast and furious, although nominally for small stakes.

'I am afraid to think of how much I must owe you,' said Lesbia, when Mr.
Smithson bade her good night.

'Oh, nothing worth speaking of--sixteen or seventeen pounds, at most.'

Lesbia felt cold and creepy, and hardly knew whether it was the chill of
new-born day, or the sense of owing money to Horace Smithson. Those
three or four half-sovereigns to-night were the end of her last
remittance from Lady Maulevrier. She had had a great many remittances
from that generous grandmother; and the money had all gone, somehow. It
was gone, and yet she had paid for hardly anything. She had accounts
with all Lady Kirkbank's tradesmen. The money had melted away--it had
oozed out of her pockets--at cards, on the race-course, in reckless
gifts to servants and people, at fancy fairs, for trifles bought here
and there by the way-side, as it were, for the sake of buying. If she
had been suddenly asked for an account of her stewardship she could not
have told what she had done with half of the money. And now she must ask
for twenty pounds more, and immediately, to pay Mr. Smithson.

She went up to her room in the clear early light, and stood like a
statue, with fixed thoughtful eyes, while Kibble took off her finery,
the pretty pale yellow gown which set off her dark brown hair, her
violet eyes. For the first time in her life she felt the keen pang of
anxiety about money matters--the necessity to think of ways and means.
She had no idea how much money she had received from her grandmother
since she had begun her career in Scotland last autumn. The cheques had
been sent her as she asked for them; sometimes even before she asked for
them; and she had k