"Yes, sir," murmured Lizzie, submissively.
"One would say you were an old hand at the game," cried Chester.
"O, as to that," replied the clergyman, smiling, "I used to be considered a good whist-player in my younger days."
"Won't you take a hand now, sir?"
"No, I thank you," laughing good-humoredly; "I gave up the amusement twenty years ago. But let me take the cards, if you are done with them, and I will show this little girl a pleasant trick, if I have not forgotten it."
"Certainly, sir," said Chester.
The family began to like the old gentleman already. Lizzie gave him her seat at the table, and looked over his shoulder. He sorted the cards with his thin, white fingers, and gave a number of them historical names, telling her to remember them. He called the game "The Battle of Waterloo." It proved eminently interesting to the older children, as well as to Lizzie; and, in such a simple, beautiful manner did the old man go through with the evolutions, that all, even the proud Chester, afterwards knew more about the last days of Napoleon's power than they had learned in all their lives.
"There!" exclaimed the clergyman, "isn't that as good as whist?"
"I like it better," answered Lizzie, who found herself already leaning fondly on his shoulder. "But what did they do with Napoleon?"
"Would you like to know?"