"I am quite relieved," said she, as the last waiter went out. "I really expected to see a wedding-cake come on after this luxury, and hear that Mr. Prayerbook was in the next car, ready to marry me or bury me." "If I had known you expected it," said De Alcantara, "I should have had it ready. And even now, I dare say, there is a priest on the train, my dear." "Oh no, indeed," said Mrs. Goole, who took everything in earnest; "it will be far better for you to retire now with the children. It's nine o'clock, and just think how hard a day you'll have to-morrow." "I don't know," said Hester. "I think that it is never so hard to do a thing as to make up one's mind to it; and as for going to bed, I don't care to. Perhaps Mr. De Alcantara has a pack of cards or so with him, and then you can have some whist, aunt, and we-- Shall we have Sancho Pedro or euchre, your Grace?" "Grace me no grace," said De Alcantara, as cards were produced--to his credit, be it said, from a friend's portmanteau. "I vote for euchre, if it be for four hands; Pedro by itself is far from exciting." "Not when it's played for love, your Grace?" said Hester. Who shall say how much the Don understood of the gambling terms of Great Britain? He stumbled and said, "Certainly, if you put it in that way." But Hester would not, and so De Alcantara took the home-bridemaid, Lucy Lander, as his partner, and a "son of St. Louis" sat opposite Hester. "I didn't quite know what to think," said Lucy Lander, afterward, to her sister. "Sometimes I thought she had made up her mind to it, and then again I thought something awful would happen. You see, he kept calling her 'my dear,' and she never blushed nor anything, except once, when she was leaning back, shading her face with her cards, and then her eyes sort of glittered; it could hardly have been the light, you know. And once she had dealt, and the cards fell ace, two, three, four, and then Mr. Gardner, the St. Louis man, said, in a sort of hesitating way, 'That means kiss the dealer, you know'; and then the duke took up her hand, which was lying on the table, but she pulled it away, and said, 'Wait--till to-morrow.' That could have meant anything, you know." And as Lucy sat and wondered, Hester sat and played, better than Lucy did, perhaps. She did not let De Alcantara kiss her hand, but she did laugh with him, and at him a little. She asked the St. Louis man if her hands were large enough to pass muster there, and then explained that her father took a Chicago paper. Indeed, so loud was the laughter of the gentlemen that Mrs. Goole kept looking round in an anxious way, and trying to catch Hester's eye. But Hester kept her back resolutely turned, and Lucy would not understand any telegrams from the chaperon; so when Mrs. Goole found, to her joy, that it was eleven, she broke up the somewhat shaky whist-table, and spoke to Hester.