The fluctuating fortunes of the gamester,--his losses or
gains,--were equally a source of suffering to herself. But the
Carnival was drawing to a close; she soon began ardently to wish that
his sister might grow weary of the increasing dulness of the French
capital, and migrate among other swallows of the season, in search of
new pleasures.
"Long had she been in expectation of an announcement to this effect,
when one night,--a cold cheerless night in March,--Vavasor exceeded
even his ordinary period of absence. The habitually dissolute of Paris
rarely keep late hours. Vice does not form with _them_, as with the
English _roue_, an occasional excess, but is consistent and regular
in its habits. Captain Kendal usually returned home between two and
three; and Amelia was accustomed to sit up, and by her own services
lighten the labours of their scanty establishment. It was _she_, the
invalid, who was careful to keep up light and fire for the tyrant of
the domestic hearth.
"But on this occasion two o'clock came,--three, four, five
o'clock,--and no Vavasor. Hour after hour she listened to the chime of
the gaudy timepiece decorating their shabby apartment; and while the
night advanced, in all its chilly, lonely, comfortless protraction,
shivered as she added new logs to the dying embers, and as she hoped
or despaired of his return, alternately replaced the veilleuse by
candles, the candles by a veilleuse.
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