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.