of marking the score, wherein, when the counters were once placed, they could not he accidentally removed by the elbow. * * Persons who are acquainted with the game of whist have informed me, that it is sometimes better--in the case of holding two by honours, for instance--to be at three than four. The spacious room--for it was a double drawing-room--was by no means brilliantly lit up; a couple of bare wax-candles stood upon the refreshment-table, where, by the by, there was no attendant, each man helping himself at pleasure; but the other four pair in the room had shades over them, which dulled their radiance, although it caused them to throw a very bright light upon the tables themselves. When the new-comers entered, which they did quite unannounced, the sight struck one of them at least as a very strange one: three shining isles of light--for one whist-table was not in use--amid a sea of gloom; ten thoughtful faces with a sort of halo round them, and one or two sombre ones standing by like their evil genii, and watching, the play. There was not a sound to be heard at first, except the dull fall of the pieces of pasteboard, but presently a hand being finished in their neighbourhood, a sort of hushed talk began about what would have happened if somebody had under-played the diamond. “What are the points?” whispered Derrick in his companion's ear. “What are the points to-night, Beamish?” inquired Walter of one of the four, a very unimpassioned-looking young man, who replied with a most unpleasant and ghastly smile--as though he had cut his throat a little too high up: “Fives and fifties, my gallant captain, with the odds in ponies; so, being a younger son, I advise you to go to some other table.” “Never mind, I am going to make a good marriage,” returned Walter coolly. Mr Beamish had been a penniless government clerk until he wedded the widow of an opulent builder with half a town for her jointure. “If you are not full,” added the captain, “I declare in here, for myself and friend.” All four looked up for an instant at the threatened stranger; for your good player, intent on gain, detests the introduction of an unknown hand. Somehow or other, although the odds are two to one, “it's always his cursed luck to have him for a partner.” General Prim, who had been a martinet in the Peninsula, and as offensive to his fellow-creatures as less favourable circumstances had permitted ever since, gave a ferocious grin, and shook his single scalp-lock of gray hair like a malignant pantaloon. The Hon. Pink Hawthorne, attache at the court at Christiana, but absent from that lively capital upon sick-leave, wrenched his fair moustache this way and that, and frowned as gloomily as his foolish forehead would permit. The dealer, a Mr Roberts, an ancient bencher of one of the Inns of Court, paused with the trump card in his fingers still unturned. “Does your friend know what the Blue Peter means, Lisgard?”