Over this Flossy looked absolutely aghast. Those boys of hers, they were getting a strong hold upon her already; she longed to lead them. Was it possible that by her very amusements she might lead them astray! Another point was, that Nellis Mitchell could never be invited to join them in a game. She had invited him often, and she winced at the thought. Did his sister think she had helped him into temptation? Following these trains of thought, she was led into another, over which she thought aloud. "And suppose any of them should ask me if I ever played cards! I should have to say yes." "Precisely," said Marion. "And don't you go to thinking that you can ever hide behind that foolish little explanation, 'I play simply for amusement; I think it is wrong to play for money.' It won't do: it takes logical brains to see the difference, and some even of those _won't_ see it; but they can readily see that, having plenty of money, of course you have no temptation to play cards for it, and they see that with them it is different." [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XII. SETTLING QUESTIONS. "THERE is Bible for that doctrine too." "Where?" Flossy asked, turning quickly to Marion. "In this verse: 'If meat maketh my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world stands.' Don't you see you never can know which brother may be made to offend?" "And it is even about so useful a thing as food," said Flossy, looking her amazement; she had never heard that verse before in her life. "About just that thing; and nothing so really unnecessary to a complete life as card-playing may be." "Col. Baker sneers at the inconsistency of people who have nothing to do with cards, and who play croquet," Eurie said this with cheeks a little heightened in color; she had come in contact with Col. Baker on this very question. Ruth looked up quickly from the paper on which she was scribbling. "I think myself," she said, "that if it should seem necessary to me to give up cards entirely, consistency would oblige me to include croquet, and all other games of that sort." "I shouldn't feel obliged to do any such thing," Marion said, promptly; "at least, not until I had become convinced that people played croquet late into the night, in rooms smelling of tobacco and liquor, and were tempted to drink freely of the latter, and pawn their coats, if necessary, to get money enough to carry out the game. You see, there is a difference." "Yet people can gamble in playing croquet," Eurie said, thoughtfully. "Oh, yes, and people can gamble with pins, or in tossing up pennies. The point is, they are not in the habit of doing it; and pins suggest no such thing to people in general; neither do croquet balls; while the fact remains that the ordinary use of cards, is to gamble with them; and comparatively few of those who use them habitually confine themselves to quiet home games. People are in danger of making their brothers offend by their use; we all know that."