“I smiled only because I think I know you better than you, know yourself. But, perhaps, that should not make me smile,” said Ellen: and she gave a deep sigh. “Now, wife, why will you sigh? I can’t bear to hear you sigh,” said Maurice, angrily. “I tell you I know myself, and have a right to know myself, I say, a great deal better than you do; and so none of your sighs, wife.” Ellen rejoiced to see that his pride worked upon him in this manner; and mildly told him she was very glad to find he thought so much about her sighs. “Why,” said Maurice, “you are not one of those wives that are always taunting and scolding their husbands; and that’s the reason, I take it, why a look or a word from you goes so far with me.” He paused for a few moments, keeping his eyes fixed upon the lottery ticket; then, snatching it up, he continued: “This lottery ticket may tempt me to game again: for, as William Deane said, putting into the lottery is gaming, and the worst sort of gaming. So, Ellen, I’ll show you that though I was a fool once, I’ll never be a fool again. All your goodness was not thrown away upon me. I’ll go and sell this lottery ticket immediately at the office, for whatever it is worth: and you’ll give me a kiss when I come home again, I know, Ellen.” Maurice, pleased with his own resolution, went directly to the lottery office to sell his ticket. He was obliged to wait some time, for the place was crowded with persons who came to inquire after tickets which they had insured. Many of these ignorant imprudent poor people had hazarded guinea after guinea, till they found themselves overwhelmed with debt; and their liberty, character, and existence, depending on the turning of the wheel. What anxious faces did Maurice behold! How many he heard, as they went out of the office, curse their folly for having put into the lottery! He pressed forward to sell his ticket. How rejoiced he was when he had parted with this dangerous temptation, and when he had received seventeen guineas in hand, instead of anxious hopes! How different were his feelings at this instant from those of many that were near him! He stood to contemplate the scene. Here he saw a poor maid-servant, with scarcely clothes to cover her, who was stretching her thin neck across the counter, and asking the clerk, in a voice of agony, whether _her_ ticket, number 45, was come up yet. “Number 45?” answered the clerk, with the most careless air imaginable. “Yes” (turning over the leaves of his book): “Number 45, you say--Yes: it was drawn yesterday--a blank.” The wretched woman clasped her hands, and burst into tears, exclaiming, “Then I’m undone!” Nobody seemed to have time to attend to her. A man servant, in livery, pushed her away, saying, “You have your answer, and have no more business here, stopping the way. Pray, sir, is number 336, the ticket I’ve insured {Footnote: This was written before the act of parliament against insuring in lotteries.} so high, come up to-day?”