Everyday Life at Monte Carlo.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 180, 27 November 1886, Page 1

Everyday Life at Monte Carlo.

At last, one day, tho old Earl accosted her as she rose from the table, after losing all she had brought with hor. '•You seam out of luck today," he began. She looked at him an instant, and repliod, " Yes ; but I usually am lately." " Do you ever win ?" "Oh, yes, sometimes, of course; but when I lose I plunge so heavily to get it back, that even when luck turns ib seldom gives me back what I havo lost." " Why do you play then ?" " Oh, what nonsense ! You know wo all do co when wo lose." "Who do }ou moan by 'we,' young lady ?" asked the Earl, fixing his eyes on her in a very earnest wanner. " You must know well enough. I mean all who gamble regularly." '• So you are one of those who gamble regularly, eh ?" Ciemenza coloured up ; tli9n, turning away to look for her mother, replied, carelessly, "lehall not bo very rogular for some time, as I have lost all my money." Madame P».onzi and her unclo now approached ; the young girl darted forward, exclaiming, in Italian, " Uncle, do lend me some money !" " I have very little left ; but here are five louia." She snatched at them, rushed back to the table, and put the whole sum he had given her on number 36. Fortune favoured her at last, for the number turned up, and she had thirty- five time3 the stake she had put down. She fairly danced with joy. "Thore, uncle, I kne c it must come soon, it has not been up " — here she referred to her marked card — " for filty-eight times, and 1 changed my luck by getting up from the table '' Her whole body seemed transformed ; she laughed, and shook hor uncle's arm playfully. The dull, heavy, tortured look had gone, and a joyous radiance spread over her face that utterly disgusted the Earl as he looked at her. " You will leave off now, dear, will you not?" asked her mother. " What, leave off just aa my luck has changed ? Oh, no, that would be foolish ;" and the young gambler began again with renewed vigour, The Earl did not remain to see whether her " luck," as she called it, continued. His mind was made up. His nephew should not marry that girl, or he would never have a shilling from him. Horror and disgust at what he called a girl'a depravity turned him away from her as much as her beauty had at firsti fascinated him.—- "The Last Stake : A Tale of Monte Carlo," by Madame ft. Fohr.