recklessly seized hold of one in a bundle.
"You must not take those, sir; Lady Adelaide will be going
immediately."

"Confound the cloaks, and Lady Adelaide too!" cried Graham,
impatiently. "Here, give me something--anything. Where is Miss
Linders' shawl? Which are Mrs. Vavasour's things?"

Madelon had stood still for a moment after Horace had left
her, and then, as he did not immediately return, she left her
station behind the window-curtain, and began walking up and
down the room. "How tired I am!" she thought wearily. "Will
this evening never end? Oh! I wish I have never come. I wish I
were going away somewhere, anywhere, so that I should never
see or hear again of anybody, that knows anything about me.
Why cannot we go home? It must be very late. I wonder what
time it is? Perhaps there is a clock in here."

The door of the room which Graham had said led into the garden
stood ajar; she pushed it open, and went in. It was a small
room, with a glass door at the further end, and on this
evening had been arranged for cards, so that Madelon, on
entering, suddenly found herself in the midst of green-baize-
covered tables, lighted candles, packs of cards, and a dozen
or so of silent, absorbed gentlemen, intent upon the trumps
and honours, points and odd tricks. The girl, already excited,
and morbidly susceptible, stopped short at this spectacle, as
one struck with a sudden blow. Not for years, not since that
evening the memory of which ever came upon her with a sudden
sting, when she had met Monsieur Horace at the gambling-tables
of Spa, had Madelon seen a card; Mrs. Treherne never had them
in her house; in those little parties of which mention has
been made as her only dissipation, they had formed no part of
the entertainment, and the sight of them now roused a thousand
tumultuous emotions of pain and pleasure. A thousand
associations attached themselves to those little bits of
pasteboard, whose black and red figures seemed to dance before
her eyes--recollections of those early years with their for-
ever-gone happiness, of her father, of happy evenings that
she, an innocent, unconscious child, had passed at his side,
building houses with old packs of cards, or spinning the
little gold pieces that passed backwards and forwards so
freely. She was happy then, happier than she could ever be
again, she thought despairingly, now that she had been taught
so sore a knowledge of good and evil. The last evening of her
fathe