Ah! she knew how fortunes were
made, and Monsieur Horace did not--that was strange, but it was
evident to her--and she would not tell him. Her superior
knowledge on this point was a hidden treasure, for a great
ambition had suddenly fired our ten-year-old Madelon. Not only
in maturer years are great plans laid, great campaigns
imagined, great victories fought for; within the narrow walls
of many a nursery, on the green lawns of many a garden, the
mimic fort is raised, the siege-train laid, the fortress
stormed; and in many a tiny head the germs of the passions and
ambitions and virtues of later years are already working out
for themselves such paths as surrounding circumstances will
allow them to find. But Madelon's childhood had known neither
nursery nor sheltered home-garden. Her earliest experiences
had been amidst the larger ventures of life, the deeper
interests that gather round advancing years; her playground
had been the salons of the gayest watering-places in Europe,
her playthings the roulette-board and the little gold and
silver pieces that had passed so freely backwards and forwards
on the long green tables where desperate stakes were ventured,
and fortunes won and lost in a night; and it was amongst these
that she now proposed to try her own little game of
enterprise, and prepare this grand surprise for Monsieur
Horace.
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