escape him, of which, in a more
attentive state of mind, he could not have failed to avail himself.
Mowbray upbraided him with his inattention, and proposed a deeper stake,
in order to interest him in the game. The young nobleman complied; and
in the course of a few hands, the gamesters became both deeply engaged
in watching and profiting by the changes of fortune. These were so many,
so varied, and so unexpected, that the very souls of the players seemed
at length centred in the event of the struggle; and, by dint of doubling
stakes, the accumulated sum of a thousand pounds and upwards, upon each
side, came to be staked in the issue of the game.--So large a risk
included all those funds which Mowbray commanded by his sister's
kindness, and nearly all his previous winnings, so to him the
alternative was victory or ruin. He could not hide his agitation,
however desirous to do so. He drank wine to supply himself with
courage--he drank water to cool his agitation; and at length bent
himself to play with as much care and attention as he felt himself
enabled to command.

In the first part of the game their luck appeared tolerably equal, and
the play of both befitting gamesters who had dared to place such a sum
on the cast. But, as it drew towards a conclusion, fortune altogether
deserted him who stood most in need of her favour, and Mowbray, with
silent despair, saw his fate depend on a single trick, and that with
every odds against him, for Lord Etherington was elder hand. But how can
fortune's favour secure any one who is not true to himself?--By an
infraction of the laws of the game, which could only have been expected
from the veriest bungler that ever touched a card, Lord Etherington
called a point without showing it, and, by the ordinary rule, Mowbray
was entitled to count his own--and in the course of that and the next
hand, gained the game and swept the stakes. Lord Etherington showed
chagrin and displeasure, and seemed to think that the rigour of the game
had been more insisted upon than in courtesy it ought to have been, when
men were playing for so small a stake. Mowbray did not understand this
logic. A thousand pounds, he said, were in his eyes no nutshells; the
rules of piquet were insisted on by all but boys and women; and for his
part, he had rather not play at all than not play the game.

"So it would seem, my dear Mowbray," said the Earl; "for on my soul, I
never saw so disconsolate a visage as thine during