She thought so much of prizes and drawn numbers through the day that she dreamed of them all night.

She had a memorandum-book in which were all the combinations she had ever heard of as taking prizes.
It contained page after page of lucky numbers and fancy "rows," and was oftener in her hand than any other book.
There being no public sale of lottery tickets in Northern cities, this weak and infatuated woman found out where some of the "policy-shops" were kept, and instead of buying tickets, as before, risked her money on numbers that might or might not come out of the wheel in lotteries said to be drawn in certain Southern States, but chiefly in Kentucky.

The numbers rarely if ever came out.

The chances were too remote.

After her husband's death she began fretting over the smallness of her income.