The natural advantages and beauties of the place are so great, the accommodation is so good, and even in some respects the inheritance of the good things the gamblers have left behind them so valuable, that it is hardly likely that the place will remain neglected. Where else are such public rooms and gardens to be found? The charge made at present for the enjoyment of all this is about six or eight cents a day. Such a payment could never have originally provided all that is placed at the disposal of the visitor. He used in the old times to enjoy it all absolutely gratuitously, unless he paid for it by his losses at the tables. Play provided it all. But it is to be feared that the very modest payment named above will be found insufficient even to keep up the establishment which Mammon has bequeathed to Virtue. The ormolu and the carved cornices, and the fresco-painted walls and the embroidered satin couches and divans, and the miles upon miles of garden-walks, have not indeed disappeared, as, according to all the orthodox legends, such Devil's gifts should do, but they will wear out; and I do not think that any eight cents a day will suffice to renew them. But in the mean time you may avail yourself of them. You may lounge on the brocade-covered divans which used to be but couches of thorns to so many of their occupants, undisturbed by any more palpitating excitement than that produced by the perusal of the daily paper. The lofty ceilings echo no more the hateful warning croak of the croupier, "Faites votre jeu, messieurs. Le jeu est fait!" which used to be ceaseless in them from midday till midnight. There are no more studies to be made on the men and women around you of all the expressions which eager avarice, torturing suspense and leaden despair can impart to the human countenance. The utmost you can hope to read on one of those placidly stolid German burgher faces is the outward and visible sign of the inward oppression caused by too copious a repast at the one-o'clock _table d'hôte_. It is the less disagreeable and less unhealthy subject of contemplation of the two. But the truth remains that virtuous Baden does look somewhat dowdy. * * * * *