an awful note was heard, for the Lady Ruth had just
put her thirteenth trump on Miss Ruff's thirteenth heart. What
Littlebathian female soul could stand that unmoved?

"Oh, dear! that poor old woman!" continued Miss Todd. "You know one
lives in constant fear of her having a fit. Miss Ruff is horrible.
She has a way of looking with that fixed eye of hers that is almost
worse than her voice." The fact was, that Miss Ruff had one glass
eye. "I know she'll be the death of that poor old creature some of
these days. Lady Ruth will play, and she hardly knows one card from
another. And then Miss Ruff, she will scold. Good heavens! do you
hear that?"

"It's just seven minutes since I turned the last trick of the last
hand," Miss Ruff had said, scornfully. "We shall have finished the
two rubbers about six in the morning, I take it."

"Will your ladyship allow me to deal for you?" said Mr. Fuzzybell,
meaning to be civil.

"I'll allow you to do no such thing," croaked out Lady Ruth. "I can
deal very well myself; at any rate as well as Miss Ruff. And I'm not
the least in a hurry;" and she went on slobbering out the cards, and
counting them over and over again, almost as each card fell.

"That's a double and a treble against a single," said Lady Longspade,
cheerfully, from another table; "six points, and five--the other
rubber--makes eleven; and the two half-crowns is sixteen, and seven
odd tricks is nineteen and six. Here's sixpence, Mrs. Fuzzybell; and
now we'll cut again."

This was dreadful to Miss Ruff. Here had her rival played two
rubbers, won them both, pocketed all but a sovereign, and was again
at work; while she, she was still painfully toiling through her
second game, the first having been scored against her by her
partner's fatuity in having trumped her long heart. Was this to be
borne with patience? "Lady Ruth," she said, emitting fire out of her
one eye, "do you ever mean to have done dealing those cards?"

Lady Ruth did not condescend to make any answer, but recommenced her
leisurely counting; and then Miss Ruff uttered that terrific screech
which had peculiarly excited Miss Todd's attention.

"I declare I don't like it at all," said the tender-hearted Miss
Baker. "I think Mr. O'Callaghan was quite right."

"No, my dear, he was quite wrong, for he blamed the use of cards, not
the abuse. And after all, what harm comes of it? I don't suppose Miss
Ruff will actually kill her. I dare say if we were playing ours