Mrs. Hazard is a very charming and interesting woman; she is affectionately attached to her husband—a good, amiable, honest man, who denies her nothing; she is the mother of some sweet little children, and the mistress of an elegant household. She entertains a good deal of very congenial society, and every one agrees that she is an admirable hostess, her manners being engaging, and her powers of conversation decidedly above the average, with one specially remarkable quality, the power of concentration. Indeed, Mrs. Hazard has apparently all the domestic and worldly advantages generally regarded as conducive to a woman’s happiness; yet she is never content. She is a confirmed gambler, and her life is one of continuous restlessness. The passion for play dominates all her finer feelings, and every other interest becomes subordinate when the excitement of gambling takes possession of her nature. She is no avaricious person, who is lured to the gaming table by the greed of gain, but she goes there to drain excitement to the dregs, as drunkard’s drink brandy. She sets little value on money in the ordinary way, for her husband is in easy circumstances, and can give her all that she can reasonably require for her expenditure, and she spends it freely and with little heed. But money which she stakes upon the turn of a card, the cast of a die, the chances of roulette, or the speed of a race-horse, she hoards like a miser, gathering and seeking to increase her winnings with the avarice of a usurer. She gambles for gambling’s sake, and the money is part of the game. It is the excitement of risk and suspense that she craves for, and while she is under its spell she concentrates every intellectual and emotional faculty upon it. Hence, of course, Monte Carlo is her Mecca, and her pilgrimages thither are frequent.