box with the first screech the engine give, but I quietened her
some way, and it wasn't till we got into the sthreets here that she went
mad altogether. Faith, I thought she was into the river with me three
times! 'Twas hardly I got her down the quays; and the first o' thim
alecthric thrams she seen! Look at me hands, sir! She had me swingin'
on the rope the way ye'd swing a flail. I tell you, Masther Freddy, them
was the ecstasies!"

Patsey paused and gazed with a gloomy pride into the stricken faces of
his audience.

"An' as for her food," he resumed, "she didn't use a bit, hay, nor oats,
nor bran, bad nor good, since she left Johnny Connolly's. No, nor drink.
The divil dang the bit she put in her mouth for two days, first and
last. Why wouldn't she eat is it, miss? From the fright sure! She'll do
nothing, only standing that way, and bushtin' out sweatin', and watching
out all the time the way I wouldn't lave her. I declare to God I'm
heart-scalded with her!"

At this harrowing juncture came the order to No. 548 to go forth to Ring
3 to be judged, and further details were reserved. But Fanny Fitz had
heard enough.

"Captain Spicer," she said, as the party paced in deepest depression
towards Ring 3, "if I hadn't on a new veil I should cry!"

"Well, I haven't," replied Captain Spicer; "shall I do it for you? Upon
my soul, I think the occasion demands it!"

"I just want to know one thing," continued Miss Fitzroy. "When does your
brother-in-law arrive?"

"Not till to-night."

"That's the only nice thing I've heard to-day," sighed Fanny Fitz.

The judging went no better for the grey filly than might have been
expected, even though she cheered up a little in the ring, and found
herself equal to an invalidish but well-aimed kick at a
fellow-competitor. She was ushered forth with the second batch of the
rejected, her spirits sank to their former level, and Fanny's
accompanied them.

Perhaps the most trying feature of the affair was the reproving sympathy
of her friends, a sympathy that was apt to break down into almost
irrepressible laughter at the sight of the broken-down skeleton of whose
prowess poor Fanny Fitz had so incautiously boasted.

"Y' know, my dear child," said one elderly M.F.H., "you had no business
to send up an animal without the condition of a wire fence to the Dublin
Show. Look at my horses! Fat as butter, every one of 'em!"

"So was mine, but it all melted away in the train," protested Fanny