, that has no outward manifestation. Joker's great
shoulders worked under her as he lengthened and quickened his
beautiful, rhythmic stride. The wind of the pace whistled in her ears
and snatched at her hair. She crammed her hat over her forehead,
laughing with the joy of battle. She was level with Larry now. Now she
was passing him, and the little grey strove in vain to hold her place.
Gallant as she was, what could she do against a raking, trained
galloper, well over sixteen hands, and nearly thoroughbred?

The smooth mile of shining grass was annihilated, wiped out in a few
whirling minutes. Joker had but just fairly settled down to go when
the end of the race was at hand. Had he been a shade less of a
gentleman than he was, Christian, and the snaffle in which she was
riding him, would hardly have stopped him, as did their joint efforts,
on the gravel in front of the goal that Larry had given her.

Hunts come, and hunts go, and are forgotten. Horses, the best and
dearest of them, fade, in some degree, from remembrance; where are the
snows of yester year, and where the great gallops that we rode when we
were young? But here and there something defies the mists of memory,
and remains, bright and imperishable as a diamond. I believe that for
Christian that mile of sun and wind and speed and flight, with her
lover thundering at her heels, will remain ever vivid, one of the
moments that are of the incalculable bounty of Chance; moments that
earth can never equal, nor Heaven better.

The hounds and staff were waiting at the farther end of the long front
of Castle Ire, when Larry and Christian made their somewhat
sensational entrance upon the scene.

"Joker wins, by a length and a half," said Bill Kirby, judicially,
"and a very pretty race. I never saw a prettier, on any sands, on any
jackasses, on any Bank Holiday! I suppose this is how people always
fetch up at meets in France? It's not come in in this benighted
country yet."

"His fault!" said Christian, breathless and glowing. "He dar'd me!
Where are you going to draw?"

"The ash-pit and the fowl-houses," replied Bill, picking up his reins.
"Then the backstairs, and the kitchenmaid's bedroom. Judith and Mrs.
Brady say he's taking all the fowl, and they're going to lay poison--I
don't mean the fowl--"

"Isn't he bright this morning?" said Judith, looking down upon the
party from an upper window, effectively arrayed in one of those lacy
and lazy garments that inv