is own reckless jollity. If
the jests he uttered on Scroope's costume, or the other allegorical
fancies of Zoe's brain, were not of the most refined taste, they were at
least heartily applauded by the indulgent public around his board. Mrs.
Ricketts was in perfect ecstasies at the flashes of his "Irish wit;"
and even Martha, fain to take on credit what was so worthily endorsed,
laughed her own meek laugh of approval. As for Purvis, champagne
completed what nature had but begun, and he became perfectly
unintelligible ere dinner was over.

All this while poor Nelly's sufferings were extreme; she saw the
unblushing, shameless adulation of the parasites, and she saw, too, the
more than commonly excited glare in her father's eyes,----the wildness
of fever rather than the passing excitation of wine. In vain, her
imploring, beseeching glances were turned towards him; in vain she
sought, by all her little devices, to withdraw him from the scene of
riotous debauch, or recall him from the excesses of a revel which was an
orgie. In his wild and boastful vein he raved about "home," as he still
called it, and of his family possessions,----at times vaunting of his
wealth and greatness, and then, as suddenly breaking into mad invectives
against the Jews and money-lenders, to whom his necessities had reduced
him.

"A good run of luck over there!" cried he, frantically, and pointing
to the blaze of lamps which now sparkled through the trees before the
Cursaal. "One good night yonder, and Peter Dalton would defy the world.
If you 're a lucky hand, Miss Martha, come over and bet for me. I 'll
make the bank jump for it before I go to bed! I know the secret of it
now. It's changing from color to color ruins everybody. You must be
steady to one,--black or red, whichever it is; stick fast to it. You
lose two, three, maybe six or seven times running; never mind, go on
still. 'T is the same with play as with women, as the old song
says,----

If they're coy, and won't hear when you say you adore,
Just squeeze them the tighter and press them the more."

"Isn't that it, Mrs. Ricketts? Ah, baithershin! you never knew that
song. Miss Martha's blushing; and just for that I 'll back 'red' all the
evening; and there's the music beginning already. Here's success to us
all! and, faix! it's a pleasant way to deserve it."

Nelly drew near him as they were leaving the room, and, passing her arm
fondly about him, whispered a few words in his