“Been everywhere and seen everything, from Queen Victoria to the Khedive of Egypt. Been on the top of Cheops, and inside of him, too,—and up the Nile to Assouan and Philae and Luxor, and seen old Rameses,—frightful looking old cove, too, with his tuft of hair and his one tooth showing,” he said, rattling on about places and people of whom Miss Hansford knew nothing. Luxor and Assouan and Cheops were not familiar to her, but when he said, “I tell you what, the very prettiest place in all Europe is Monte Carlo,” she was on the alert in a moment. She looked upon Monte Carlo as a pool of iniquity, and she said to the young man, “Paul, you didn’t gamble there!” Paul answered laughingly, “They don’t call it gambling; they call it play.” “Well, play, then. You didn’t play? I know you didn’t, for when I heard you was there I wrestled in prayer three times a day that God would keep you unspotted, and he did, didn’t he?” She had her hand on his shoulder and was looking into his face with such faith and trust in her kind old eyes that it was hard to tell her the truth. But the boy who had never told a lie when he stole the melon had not told one since, and would not do so now, even if he lost some of the good woman’s opinion. “I’m afraid you didn’t wrestle enough,” he said, “for I did play.” “Oh, Paul,” and Miss Hansford drew a long breath, which hurt the young man some, but he went on unfalteringly, “I didn’t mean to, but when I saw how easy it was to put down a piece of money and double it I tried and made quite a lot at first; then I began to lose and quit.” “Thank God!” came with great fervor from Miss Hansford, while Paul continued, “It beats all what a fascination there is about it, and what luck some people have. There was Clarice, won straight along till she made two or three hundred dollars.” “Clarice! oh, she was there, was she?” Miss Hansford asked, her tone indicating that she knew now perfectly well why Paul played and in a measure exonerated him. Had Paul been less in love than he was, or less blinded with his great happiness, he would have interpreted her manner aright. But he was blind, and he was in love, and he replied, “Why, yes; didn’t you know that Mrs. Percy and Clarice were with us in Italy and Switzerland and in Paris, and on the same ship with us? That’s why we came a week earlier. We wanted to be with them.” “I see, but I didn’t know as Miss Percy was able to go scurripin’ all over the world,” was Miss Hansford’s comment, to which Paul did not reply. He was thinking how he should tell her what he had come to tell and what seemed very easy when he was by himself. If Miss Hansford had not been sitting up quite so straight and prim and looking at him so sharply through her spectacles, which he knew were her near-seers, and which nothing could escape, he would have been less nervous.