break with a little pressure, so delicate were they. "The
filly won't be in it, Master Terry, wid your Mamma's horse. I've never
seen a better foal. He'll win the Derby yet. Woa, Magda, woa, my
beauty."

He was trying to get close to the mare, she being restive. Suddenly
she uttered a joyous whinny and started off down the field, the little
foal at her heels, the long manes of both flying in the wind.

"She knows her Ladyship has sugar for her. An' there's Miss Eileen. I
never knew a young lady as much afraid of a horse as Miss Eileen. You
should tache her better, Master Terry."

They stood by a gate to look at the horses which at a little distance
beyond a small enclosure hung their long sleek noses across a five-foot
paling. The points of the horses had to be discussed. Patsy had quite
forgotten his fatigue. He opened the gate and they crossed the narrow
strip between that and the paling. A second gate was opened and they
passed through.

While they were looking at the horses they were joined by Lady O'Gara
and Miss Creagh, the latter, a delicately fair girl with a mass of fine
golden hair caught up with many hairpins a-top of her small head,
keeping close to Lady O'Gara.

Lady O'Gara was laughing. Her husband sometimes called her the
Laughing Goddess. She had two aspects to her beauty--one when she was
soft and motherly, the other when she rallied those she loved and
sparkled with merriment. Her still beautiful copper-coloured hair had
hardly a white thread in it. She was very charming to look at in her
matronly beauty.

"I've had to defend poor Eileen from the mares," she said. "They were
impudent, crowding around me for sugar and sticking their noses in my
pocket. Magda and Brunette nearly came to blows. I had to push them
off with my whip. Poor Eileen!"

"I'm so sorry you were frightened," Terry O'Gara said, drawing a little
nearer to the girl and looking into her blue eyes.

The others had gone on.

"You won't be afraid with me," said the boy, who had just passed out of
Sandhurst; and was feeling immensely proud of his commission and his
sword and all they betokened, although he talked lazily about "cutlery"
and the pleasure of getting into mufti, making his mother's eyes dance.

"If you like, we will keep behind," he said. "If you are not
accustomed to it, it is rather alarming to be caught into a herd of
horses. My mother is so used to them that she cannot imagine any one
bei