"Nay, Sir, they often happen, only friends interpose and effect a reconciliation. But with such facts imprinted on our memory, can we say that such a game is the game of innocence?"
"I think, Madam, you are rather too severe, for you must allow that it often beguiles away many a languid hour."
"Which hours, Sir, ought to be spent in preparation for immortality."
"You veer, Madam, towards death, from whatever point of the compass you set out."
"And, Sir, death is veering towards us, in whatever employments we are engaged; but would you like to feel his fatal infliction when seated at a card-table, or returning from a theatre?"
"Too grave; much too grave, Madam, to be pleasant."
FRESH PERPLEXITIES.
Mrs. Denham was not one of the select party that met at Mr. Roscoe's, as she had accompanied her husband to Bath, where he was detained longer than he expected, having some important family matters to adjust with the executors of a deceased uncle. On the day after her return home, when sitting quietly by herself in her little back parlour, working away hard and fast with her knitting needles, Miss Denham came in, took a seat by her side, and thus began:—