Plainly, Miss Caroline had more than enough of matters fit to engage her graver moments.
For my own part I, too, had matters to dwell upon of an equal gravity in their own poor way; though perhaps, too, I could not have defined them as understandingly as I did the perplexities of my neighbor.
Happily the feat need not be attempted; I had the game, in which troubles may be played away at least beyond the necessity for analyzing them--the game which requires two decks and is to be played alone--the most efficacious of those devices for the solitary which cards afford.
I had been made acquainted with its scheme and with some of its cruder virtues by a certain illustrious soldier whom I was once much thrown with.

He confessed to me that he played it before a battle to inspire him with coolness, and after a battle to learn wise behavior under victory or defeat, as it might have been.
I was persuaded to learn more of it.

I played the thing at first, to be sure, as I have noticed that novices always do, with a mind so bent upon "getting it" that I was insensible of its curative and refining agencies.
"You haven't the secret yet," said my mentor, who watched me as I won for the first time, and was moved to warn me by my unconcealed pride in this achievement.

"After you've played it a few years, you'll learn that the value of it lies chiefly in losing.

You'll try like the devil to win, of course, but you'll learn not to wish for it.