o you, but I
can't tell where."

"Come here, Diamond," was all her answer.

Diamond opened the door, and went out of the room, and down the stair
and into the yard. His little heart was in a flutter, for he had long
given up all thought of seeing her again. Neither now was he to see her.
When he got out, a great puff of wind came against him, and in obedience
to it he turned his back, and went as it blew. It blew him right up to
the stable-door, and went on blowing.

"She wants me to go into the stable," said Diamond to himself, "but the
door is locked."

He knew where the key was, in a certain hole in the wall--far too high
for him to get at. He ran to the place, however: just as he reached it
there came a wild blast, and down fell the key clanging on the stones at
his feet. He picked it up, and ran back and opened the stable-door, and
went in. And what do you think he saw?

A little light came through the dusty window from a gas-lamp, sufficient
to show him Diamond and Ruby with their two heads up, looking at each
other across the partition of their stalls. The light showed the white
mark on Diamond's forehead, but Ruby's eye shone so bright, that he
thought more light came out of it than went in. This is what he saw.

But what do you think he heard?

He heard the two horses talking to each other--in a strange language,
which yet, somehow or other, he could understand, and turn over in
his mind in English. The first words he heard were from Diamond, who
apparently had been already quarrelling with Ruby.

"Look how fat you are Ruby!" said old Diamond. "You are so plump and
your skin shines so, you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"There's no harm in being fat," said Ruby in a deprecating tone. "No,
nor in being sleek. I may as well shine as not."

"No harm?" retorted Diamond. "Is it no harm to go eating up all poor
master's oats, and taking up so much of his time grooming you, when you
only work six hours--no, not six hours a day, and, as I hear, get along
no faster than a big dray-horse with two tons behind him?--So they tell
me."

"Your master's not mine," said Ruby. "I must attend to my own master's
interests, and eat all that is given me, and be sleek and fat as I can,
and go no faster than I need."

"Now really if the rest of the horses weren't all asleep, poor
things--they work till they're tired--I do believe they would get up and
kick you out of the stable. You make me ashamed of being a horse.