whereas, one has to force the
spirit to enter into the other. Commodore, our hour has come, and we
must make sail. May I ask the favour, Mrs. Abbott, of a bit of thread
to fasten this hook afresh?"

The widow-bewitched turned to her basket, and raising a piece of
calico, to look for the thread "high, low, jack and the game," stared
her in the face. When she bent her eyes towards her guests, she
perceived all three gazing at the cards, with as much apparent
surprise and curiosity, as if two of them knew nothing of their
history.

"Awful!" exclaimed Mrs. Abbott, shaking both hands,--"awful--awful--
awful! The powers of darkness have been at work here!"

"They seem to have been pretty much occupied, too," observed the
captain, "for a better thumbed pack I never yet found in the
forecastle of a ship."

"Awful--awful--awful!--This is equal to the forty days in the
wilderness, Mr. Dodge."

"It is a trying cross, ma'am."

"To my notion, now," said the captain, "those cards are not worse
than the skipping-rope, though I allow that they might have been
cleaner."

But Mrs. Abbott was not disposed to view the matter so lightly. She
saw the hand of the devil in the affair, and fancied it was a new
trial offered to her widowed condition.

"Are these actually cards!" she cried, like one who distrusted the
evidence of her senses.

"Just so, ma'am," kindly answered the commodore; "This is the ace of
spades, a famous fellow to hold when you have the lead; and this is
the Jack, which counts one, you know, when spades are trumps. I never
saw a more thorough-working pack in my life."

"Or a more thoroughly worked pack," added the captain, in a condoling
manner. "Well, we are not all perfect, and I hope Mrs. Abbott will
cheer up and look at this matter in a gayer point of view. For myself
I hold that a skipping-rope is worse than the Jack of spades, Sundays
or week days. Commodore, we shall see no pickerel to-day, unless we
tear ourselves from this good company."

Here the two wags took their leave, and retreated to the skiff; the
captain, who foresaw an occasion to use them, considerately offering
to relieve Mrs. Abbott from the presence of the odious cards,
intimating that he would conscientiously see them fairly sunk in the
deepest part of the lake.

When the two worthies were at a reasonable distance from the shore,
the commodore suddenly ceased rowing, made a flourish with his hand,
and incontinently began to laugh, a