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"I'm sorry to hear that, sir," said I, "and madame not liking the play, either."

"Sure, she doesn't like it at all; but what could she do in her own house when the duke brings out his cloth, and says, 'Just one game for the luck of it?' Faith, he carries a board wherever he goes, and you might as well expect a child not to touch the jam as to keep his fingers off it. And 'tis wonderful luck he has, too. He won on manque fifteen times running last night. I've never seen the like."

"Let's hope his luck will change, sir," said I, as he put on his coat to go down stairs; "we couldn't afford many nights like that."

"Indeed, and we couldn't, and she'll not be allowing it, either. She detests the play entirely—and no wonder, with a brother that's half a Jesuit, and the lesson her husband taught her not yet forgotten. He lost a fortune at the cards in Paris, ye may know. Bedad! they say he would have played with the priest that came to anoint him."

This was all the talk we had that day, for he spent the morning riding in the woods with Mme. Pauline; and when he dressed for dinner at night he was in such a fluster to make himself fine that I could not get a word with him. As the thing stood, he could not tell me any thing which would help me to get to the bottom of the mystery in the park; and that was the matter my mind ran upon. Hour after hour I'd been thinking of it, yet not a foot further had I got; and I was just about burning with