"Oh! yes, there is Uncle Charles—he comes with us generally; but sometimes he goes away, and then I am so glad."
"How is that? are you not fond of him?"
"No," said Madelon, "I don't like him at all; he is very disagreeable, and teases me. And he is always wanting me to go away; he says, 'Adolphe'—that is papa, you know—'when is that child going to school?' But papa pays no attention to him, for he is never going to send me away; he told me so, and he says he could not get on without me at all."
Graham no longer wondered at Madelon's choice of a game, for it appeared she was in the habit of accompanying her father every evening to the gambling tables, when they were at any of the watering-places he frequented.
"Sometimes we go away into the ball-room and dance," she said, "that is when papa is losing; he says, 'Madelon, mon enfant, I see we shall do nothing here to-night, let us go and dance.' But sometimes he does nothing but win, and then we stop till the table closes, and he makes a great deal of money. Do you ever make money in that way, Monsieur?" she added naïvely.
"Indeed I do not," replied Graham.
"It is true that everyone has not the same way," said the child, with an air of being well informed, and evidently regarding her father's way as a profession like another, only superior to most. "What do you do, Monsieur?"
"I am going to be a doctor, Madelon."
"A doctor," she said reflecting; "I do not think that can be a good way. I only know one doctor, who cured me when I was ill last winter; but I know a great many gentlemen who make money like papa. Can you make a fortune with ten francs, Monsieur?"
"I don't think I ever tried," answered Horace.