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 won; then they lost. Then they staked larger and larger sums in the vain hope of recovering the gold which was rapidly slipping away from their possession. But they played on. Loss followed loss; they still went on playing. Then they staked the last money they had, and lost. Bankrupt and heart-broken, they betook themselves to the cliffs that overhang the Mediterranean, and, hand in hand, plunged into the sea and were lost. Oh, can that be innocent which in any degree tends to encourage this thirst for getting gain not in the paths of honest industry, but in a way which God cannot and does not bless?" She paused. Walter hung down his head, while his features worked uneasily. Then he slowly raised his face, and said, "I suppose I'm wrong; but then, what is to be done? Gregson will ask me about it, and what am I to say? `Brother Amos disapproves of raffles;' will that do? I can just fancy I can see him and Saunders holding their sides and shaking like a pair of pepper-boxes. No, it won't do; we can't _always_ be doing just what's right. If Amos don't go in for the raffle, I think I must, unless I wish to be laughed at till they've jeered all the spirit out of me."