They made anxious
calculations as to how little `good money' might, with
reasonable luck, be squandered in the meantime. Here,
however, their reckoning went far astray; the close of the
Dieppe season merely turned their aunt's thoughts in search
of some other convenient gambling resort. `Show a cat the
way to the dairy---' I forget how the proverb goes on, but
it summed up the situation as far as the Brimley Bomefields'
aunt was concerned. She had been introduced to unexplored
pleasures, and found them greatly to her liking, and she was
in no hurry to forgo the fruits of her newly acquired
knowledge. You see, for the first time in her life the old
thing was thoroughly enjoying herself; she was losing money,
but she had plenty of fun and excitement over the process,
and she had enough left to do very comfortably on. Indeed,
she was only just learning to understand the art of doing
oneself well. She was a popular hostess, and in return her
fellow-gamblers were always ready to entertain her to
dinners and suppers when their luck was in. Her nieces, who
still remained in attendance on her, with the pathetic
unwillingness of a crew to leave a foundering treasure ship
which might yet be steered into port, found little pleasure
in these Bohemian festivities; to see `good money' lavished
on good living for the entertainment of a nondescript circle
of acquaintances who were not likely to be in any way
socially useful to them, did not attune them to a spirit of
revelry.
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