es askin' to be slaughtered," he said. "Never see sich a sight.
Never!"

Old Mat for once was glum. His eye lost its twinkle, and his walk its
famous lilt. Mr. Haggard was genuinely sorry for the old man.

"Miss her, Mr. Woodburn?" he asked, stopping the trainer in the village
street.

"Miss her!" cried the other. "Mr. Haggard, there's nothing about Hell
you can teach _me_. I knows it all." He waved a significant hand and
walked away, his heart in his boots.

Of all the party at Putnam's, Mrs. Woodburn only seemed undisturbed.
Unmoved by the gloom of those about her, glum looks, short answers, and
the atmosphere of a November fog, she went about her business as before.

Boy's history during those weeks has never been written, and never will
be. What she did, said, thought, and suffered during that time--and what
others did, said, thought, and suffered because of her--none but the
Recording Angel knows. The girl herself never referred to the point; but
were reference made to it, she winced like a foal at the touch of the
branding-iron.

The episode happily lasted but three weeks.

At the end of that time, on a Saturday morning, one of the lads had
ridden the Fly-away filly over to Lewes. There in the High Street the
girl swooped on him.

"Get off!" she ordered.

The lad, who feared Miss Boy as he did the devil, obeyed with alacrity.

"Put me up!" Boy ordered.

Again the lad obeyed, and the next thing he was aware of was the swish
of the filly's thoroughbred tail as she disappeared round the corner of
the street.

An hour later the girl clattered into the yard at Putnam's, the filly in
a foam.

Monkey Brand, a chamois leather in his hand, came running out.

"Miss Boy!" he cried.

There was an extraordinary air of suppressed excitement about the girl.
She was white-hot and sparkling, yet cold. Indeed, she gave the
impression of a sea of emotions battling beneath a floor of ice.

"I've got out," she said.

Panting, but fearless eyed, she went in to face her mother.

Mrs. Woodburn did not seem surprised.

She met her daughter's resistance with disarming quiet.

"Well, Boy," she said, kissing the truant.

"I'm not going back," panted the girl. Her spirit fluttered furiously as
that of an escaped bird who fears recapture.

"I'm not going to send you back, my dear," replied the mother.

The girl put her arms about her mother's neck in a moment of rare
impulse.

"Oh, mother!" she sighed.

She di