voices; "we shall have no good humour, until Chalon and Leoni are both tipsy. They are nervous, let us bring their fit to a crisis."

"Yes, my friends, my good friends," cried Leoni; "wine and good humour, and friendship, and life! It is the cards that make me snappish. Huzza! for wine and cigars, and idleness and love and everything that makes us live. Everything is good in its way when one is powerful enough to enjoy it." They all rose up, roaring forth a bacchanalian chorus.

I fled up the staircase with the precipitation of one closely pursued by an enemy, and I fell insensible on the floor of my

chamber.

On the following morning, I was found extended upon the carpet, stiff and cold,-a brain fever ensued. I believe Leoni nursed me. I fancied I saw him sometimes at my pillow, but I could only entertain a vague idea of it. In three days I was out of danger. Leoni then called from time to time to ask how I was, and spend a portion of the evening with me; but I afterwards learned that he left the palace every night, and did not return until six o'clock in the morning.

Of all that I had heard, I had a clear perception of one point alone, and that was, one that caused me unutterable pain that Leoni loved me no longer. Until then I would not believe it, although his whole conduct might have let one feel it. I resolved I would no longer contribute to his ruin, or take advantage of a remnant of compassion or generosity, which still dictated his attentions to me. I sent for him as soon as I had strength to bear the interview, and I told him what I had heard him say of me to his boon companions. I was silent as to the rest. In fact, I could not see clearly through that confusion of iniquities which his friend's allusions had raised in my mind, nor did I wish to fathom the gloom; my mind was made up to the worst that could happen, abandonment, despair, or death.

I told him I was determined to separate from him, and that I should leave Venice in a week, that henceforth I would accept nothing from him. I had carefully kept my father's pin, and the sale of it would provide me with more than sufficient funds to take me to Brussels.

The courage with which I spoke, and which was no doubt aided by my fever, was a sudden blow to Leoni. He was silent, and paced the chamber with a hurried step, then bursting into a paroxysm of grief, he flung himself upon a sofa. I started from my couch,

"No," said he, suddenly grasping my arm, "" you must not leave me. Would you condemn me to death as a punishment for words that escaped from me in my cups? Do you, can you believe it? Oh! what have I not suffered for these last fifteen days. There are secrets here (and he struck his bosom violently with his fist) which are burning my vitals; if I could reveal them to you-but you could not hear them to the end. Oh! Juliet, you know not to what I am urged by an association with ruined spendthrits, and a soul compounded of such conflicting elements as mine."

"I know the worst," said I; "but did you love me still, I would brave it all."

"You know it," said he, with a frenzied air, "you know it. What is it you know?"

"I know you are ruined-that this palace is not your own-that you have spent a large fortune in four months, and I know that you are accustomed to the dissipated career of an adventurer. I am not aware how you contrive to spend and retrieve your fortune in such a short space of time. I believe gaming to be your ruin and your resource. I can see you are

surrounded by fatal companions, and that you struggle against wicked counsels. I believe you are on the brink of a precipice, but that you may still fly from it."

"All quite true," said he; "then you do know all, and you will forgive me."

"If I had not lost your affection," said I," I would not consider I had lost anything in leaving this palace with all its splendour, and this round of company which I abhor. No matter how poor we might be, we could always afford a cottage, if not in Switzerland, at least in some other quarter. If you loved me, you would not be lost; for you would forget those evil passions which you made the subject of a fiendish toast. If you loved me, we could pay our debts with what property we have still remaining, and seek some retreat where I would soon forget what I have heard,”

"Oh! I do love you-fondly, dearly, love you," exclaimed

he. "Let us fly. Save me! save us both! Be my benefactress, my angel, as you have always been. Come, forgive me." He threw himself at my feet and poured out such a torrent of passionate words, with such fervour, that I believed him ; and so I believe I would again. Yet he was deceiving me, humbling me, and yet he loved me.

One day that he felt nettled with my reproaches, he burst out into a defence of gaming,

"Gambling," said he, "is a passion as energetic as love, but different in its effects. More productive of strong dra matic effect, it is more exciting, more heroic in the acts which lead to the final denouement. If this denouement is misery, as, alas! it must be confessed it is, the ardour is powerful, the boldness is sublime, the sacrifices are blind and unlimited. No woman never inspired a passion so all absorbing. Gold has a power, which even theirs cannot equal. In strength, in courage, in devotedness, in perseverance, compared with the gambler, the lover is but a weak child, whose efforts are deserving of pity. How few men have you seen ready to sacrifice that inestimable possession, that priceless necessary, that vital principle; without which, it is believed that life is no longer supportable. Their honour-I have seen men sacrifice their lives for it, but there ends their devotion. Day after day, the gambler immolates his honour, and yet lives. He is stoical; he triumphs with coolness; he submits to defects with coolness; in the space of a few hours he passes from the lowest to the highest ranks of society; in a few hours he redescends to the level from which he rose; and this without changing a muscle, without betraying the slightest emotion. In the course of a

few hours, and without quitting the spot where he is spellbound by his demon, he experiences all the vicissitudes of life, he passes through all the varieties of fortune which the different social conditions represent. He is now a king, now a beggar; at a single bound he goes from one end to the other of the immense ladder, ever calm, ever self-possessed, ever sustained by his athletic ambition, ever excited by the sharp thirst which devours him. What shall he be in a few minutes, prince or slave? In what condition shall he leave that room, pennyless or bending under a weight of gold? What matters it, he will return again to-morrow to remake his fortune, to lose it or to triple it.

"To him rest is quite out of the question. He is like the bird of the storm who cannot live without the raging waves, and lashing winds. He is accused of loving gold, so little does he love it that he throws it away in handsfull. Gold is his plaything, his enemy, his god, his dream, his demon, his poetry; the phantom he pursues, attacks, struggles with, and which he presently lets go for the mere pleasure of again recommencing the struggle, and of contending, hand to hand, with destiny once more. His energies are misdirected, true; but while you blame, you cannot despise him. How many men are there who work for the public good, without thinking

of themselves. But the gamester boldly takes his position alone; he stands apart; he disposes of the future; the present; his repose; his honour. Deplore his error if you will, ye plodding labourers or professions; but do not compare yourselves with him in your secret pride, to glorify yourself at his expense. Be satisfied that his fatal example consoles you for your inoffensive nullity."

"Good heavens !" I replied, "on what vain sophistry have you fed your heart, or how very weak is my intellect. What! the gamester not a contemptible being? Oh, Leoni, gifted with such energies as yours, why have you not employed them? why have you not quelled them in the interests of your fellowmen ?"

"Because," replied he in a bitter and ironical tone, "I took an erroneous view of life; because my self-love was a bad counsellor. Instead of mounting the boards of a sumptuous theatre, I chose the platform of an itinerant show-box; instead of employing myself in declaiming specious moralities and meeting heroes on the stage of the world. I have amused myself in giving full play to the vigour of my muscles in exhibiting feats of strength, and in risking my neck by dancing on a tight rope; nor is this comparison quite in point. The mountebank has his vanity, like the tragedian and the philanthropic orators. The gamester has no such engagement; he is neither admired, nor applauded, nor envied. His triumphs are so short and so hazardous, that they are not worth talking about. On the contrary, society condemns him, the vulgar despise him, particularly on those days when he has lost. His charlatanism consists in keeping a bold countenance, and in falling decently before a group of spectators, too much engaged to cast a glance upon him. If, during the brief interval of his success, he takes any pleasure in satisfying the vulgar vanities of luxury, it is a very short tribute he pays to human weakHe must soon sacrifice without pity, the puerile enjoyments of a moment to the pressing activity of his soul, to that burning fever which will not let him live a whole day of the life of other men. He has no time for the pleasures of vanity. He has something else to do. Has he not got to rack his heart; confuse his brain; drink his blood; pinch his flesh; lose his gold; stake his life; new-fashion it; get rid of it; twist it; tear it to pieces; risk it entire; win it back, piece by piece; put it in his purse; throw it on the table. Ask the sailor if he can live on land; ask the bird if it can be happy

ness.

without its wings; or the heart of man, if it can dispense with emotions?

"As for me," continued he, with a more gloomy air, and with a quivering voice, "after having supported this life of anguish and convulsion for a length of time, with that chivalrous heroism which formed the basis of my character, I allowed myself to be corrupted at last; that is, my mind becoming gradually accustomed to this perpetual conflict I lost the stoical strength with which I was accustomed to brave reverses,-bear with the privations of a horrible distress, patiently recommence the edifice of my fortunes, sometimes with a single shilling, wait, hope, move prudently and step by step, sacrifice an entire month to repairing the losses of a day: such was my life for a length of time. But at last wearied with endurance, I began to seek beyond the precincts of my will and my virtue, (for it must be owned the gamester has his virtue,) the means of regaining more quickly the sums I had lost. I borrowed, and from that hour I was lost.

"At first one suffers severely at being placed in an indelicate situation; and then, as with everything else, one grows careless, then callous: I did as all gamesters and prodigals do. I be came noxious and dangerous to my friends, I accumulated upon their heads those evils which I had long sustained without flinching upon my own, I became culpable, I risked my honour, then the existence and the honour of my neighbours. The most horrible future in gambling is, that it gives you none of those lessons which are not to recur again. It is always ready, always soliciting your attention. That exhaustless gold is always before your eyes, it follows you, invites you, it says to you, hope; and sometimes it keeps its promises; it gives you boldness, re-establishes your credit, it seems still to retard the day of dishonour, but dishonour is consummated on that day when honour is voluntarily risked."

Here Leoni bent his head, and fell into a gloomy silence. The confession which he seemed to have meditated, expired upon his lips. I saw by his shame and sorrow that it was useless to expose the fallacies of the sophistry in favour of his irregularities; his conscience was already busy with it.

to

"Listen," said he, as soon as we were reconciled, morrow I shall close the house to all our intimate friends. I am going to Milan to recover a large debt. In the meantime take care of yourself, re-establish your health, call in all our tradesmen's bills, and make arrangements for our imme