the same
value, nor an equivalent in money, for you have given only a guinea for
what is worth a hundred guineas. Nor have you received her as a free
gift."

"I quite agree with you, Amos," said his father; "you have put it very
clearly. I think these raffles, in which you risk your little in the
hope of getting some one else's much, are thoroughly unwholesome and
dangerous in principle, and are calculated to encourage a taste for more
serious gambling."

"But stop there, please, dear father," said Walter. "When a man gives
his guinea for what is worth one hundred guineas, or when a man bets say
one to ten, if he wins, does not the loser make a free gift to him?
There is no compulsion. He stakes his bigger sum willingly, and loses
it willingly."

"Nay, not so," said Amos. "He is not willing to lose his larger sum; he
makes no out-and-out gift of it. In laying his larger sum against your
smaller, he does so because he is persuaded or fully expects that he
shall get your money and not lose his own."

"I quite agree with you," said Mr Huntingdon again.

Walter looked discomfited, and not best pleased. Then Miss Huntingdon
said, in her clear gentle voice, "Surely dear Amos is right. If the
principle of gambling is in the raffle, though in a seemingly more
innocent form, how can it be otherwise than perilous and wrong to engage
in such things? Oh, there is such a terrible fascination in this
venturing one's little in the hope of making it much, not by honest work
of hand or brain, nor by giving an equivalent, nor by receiving it as
the free-will loving gift of one who gladly does us a kindness. What
this fascination may lead to is to be seen in that terrible paradise of
the gambler, Monaco, on the shore of the lovely Mediterranean. I have
lately heard a most thrilling account of what is to be seen in that
fearfully attractive palace of despair. Lovely gardens are there,
ravishing music, an exquisite salon where the entranced players meet to
throw away fortune, peace, and hope. At first you might imagine you
were in a church, so still and serious are the deluded mammon-
worshippers. And what follows? I will mention but one case; it is a
well-attested one. Two young Russian ladies, wealthy heiresses, entered
the gaming-hall. For a while they looked on with indifference; then
with some little interest; then the spell began to work. The
fascination drew them on; they sat down, they played. At first they