“1, 2, 3,” cried the girl, dancing about and waving her little slip of paper over her head.  “I knew it would come—­dreamed of them numbers three nights hand running!  Hand over the money, old chap!  Fifteen dollars for fifteen cents!  That’s the go!”

The policy-dealer took the girl’s “piece,” and after comparing it with the record of drawn numbers, said, in a pleased voice,

“All right!  A hit, sure enough.  You’re in luck to-day.”

The girl took the money, that was promptly paid down, and as she counted it over the dealer remarked,

“There’s a doubling game going on, and it’s to be up to-morrow, sure.”

“What’s the row?” inquired the girl.

“4, 10, 40,” said the dealer.

“Then count me in;” and she laid down five dollars on the counter.

“Take my advice and go ten,” urged the policy-dealer.

“No, thank you! shouldn’t know what to do with more than five hundred dollars.  I’ll only go five dollars this time.”

The “writer,” as a policy-seller is called, took the money and gave the usual written slip of paper containing the selected numbers; loudly proclaiming her good luck, the girl then went away.  She was an accomplice to whom a “piece” had been secretly given after the drawn numbers were in.

Of course this hit was the sensation of the day among the policy-buyers at that office, and brought in large gains.

The wretched woman who had just seen five hundred dollars vanish into nothing instead of becoming, as under the wand of an enchanter, a great heap of gold, listened in a kind of maze to what passed around her—­listened and let the tempter get to her ear again.  She went away, stooping in her gait as one bearing a heavy burden.  Before an hour had passed hope had lifted her again into confidence.  She had to make but one venture more to double on the risk of the day previous, and secure a fortune that would make both herself and daughters independent for life.

Another sale of good stocks, another gambling venture and another loss, swelling the aggregate in this wild and hopeless “doubling” experiment to over a thousand dollars.

But she was not cured.  As regularly as a drunkard goes to the bar went she to the policy-shops, every day her fortune growing less.  Poverty began to pinch.  The house in which she lived with her daughters was sold, and the unhappy family shrunk into a single room in a third-rate boarding-house.  But their income soon became insufficient to meet the weekly demand for board.  Long before this the daughters had sought for something to do by which to earn a little money.  Pride struggled hard with them, but necessity was stronger than pride.

We finish the story in a few words.  In a moment of weakness, with want and hard work staring her in the face, one of the daughters married a man who broke her heart and buried her in less than two years.  The other, a weak and sickly girl, got a situation as day governess in the family of an old friend of her father’s, where she was kindly treated, but she lived only a short time after her sister’s death.