her queen on his remaining rook's file.

'There--how stupid! Upon my word, I did not see your rook. Of course
nobody but a fool would have put a queen there knowingly!'

She spoke excitedly, half expecting her antagonist to give her back the
move.

'Nobody, of course,' said Knight serenely, and stretched out his hand
towards his royal victim.

'It is not very pleasant to have it taken advantage of, then,' she said
with some vexation.

'Club laws, I think you said?' returned Knight blandly, and mercilessly
appropriating the queen.

She was on the brink of pouting, but was ashamed to show it; tears
almost stood in her eyes. She had been trying so hard--so very
hard--thinking and thinking till her brain was in a whirl; and it seemed
so heartless of him to treat her so, after all.

'I think it is----' she began.

'What?'

--'Unkind to take advantage of a pure mistake I make in that way.'

'I lost my rook by even a purer mistake,' said the enemy in an
inexorable tone, without lifting his eyes.

'Yes, but----' However, as his logic was absolutely unanswerable, she
merely registered a protest. 'I cannot endure those cold-blooded ways of
clubs and professional players, like Staunton and Morphy. Just as if it
really mattered whether you have raised your fingers from a man or no!'

Knight smiled as pitilessly as before, and they went on in silence.

'Checkmate,' said Knight.

'Another game,' said Elfride peremptorily, and looking very warm.

'With all my heart,' said Knight.

'Checkmate,' said Knight again at the end of forty minutes.

'Another game,' she returned resolutely.

'I'll give you the odds of a bishop,' Knight said to her kindly.

'No, thank you,' Elfride replied in a tone intended for courteous
indifference; but, as a fact, very cavalier indeed.

'Checkmate,' said her opponent without the least emotion.

Oh, the difference between Elfride's condition of mind now, and when she
purposely made blunders that Stephen Smith might win!

It was bedtime. Her mind as distracted as if it would throb itself out
of her head, she went off to her chamber, full of mortification at being
beaten time after time when she herself was the aggressor. Having for
two or three years enjoyed the reputation throughout the globe of her
father's brain--which almost constituted her entire world--of being an
excellent player, this fiasco was intolerable; for unfortunately the
person most dogged in the belief in a false re