ered it for some item on the
programme. The Grand Stand, a bark shed open to the air on three sides,
was resorted to only in the case of a sudden downpour; the occupants of
the dust-laden buggies, wagonettes, brakes, carts and drays preferred
to follow events standing on their seats, and on the boards that served
them as seats. After the meeting, those who belonged to the
Urquhart-Glendinning set went on to Yarangobilly, and danced till long
pastmidnight on the broad verandah. It was nearly three o'clock before
Purdy brought his load safely home. Under the round white moon, the
lorry was strewn with the forms of sleeping children.

Early next morning while Polly, still only half awake, was pouring out
coffee and giving Richard who, poor fellow, could not afford to leave
his patients, an account of their doings--with certain omissions, of
course: she did not mention the glaring indiscretion Agnes Glendinning
had been guilty of, in disappearing with Mr. Henry Ocock into a dark
shrubbery--while Polly talked, the postman handed in two letters, which
were of a nature to put balls and races clean out of her head. The
first was in Mrs. Beamish's ill-formed hand, and told a sorrowful tale.
Custom had entirely gone: a new hotel had been erected on the new road;
Beamish was forced to declare himself a bankrupt; and in a few days the
Family Hotel, with all its contents, would be put up at public auction.
What was to become of them, God alone knew. She supposed she would end
her days in taking in washing, and the girls must go out as servants.
But she was sure Polly, now so up in the world, with a husband doing so
well, would not forget the old friends who had once been so kind to
her--with much more in the same strain, which Polly skipped, in reading
the letter aloud. The long and short of it was: would Polly ask her
husband to lend them a couple of hundred pounds to make a fresh start
with, or failing that to put his name to a bill for the same amount?

"Of course she hasn't an idea we were obliged to borrow money
ourselves," said Polly in response to Mahony's ironic laugh. "I
couldn't tell them that."

"No ... nor that it's a perpetual struggle to keep the wolf from the
door," answered her husband, battering in the top of an egg with the
back of his spoon.

"Oh, Richard dear, things aren't quite so bad as that," said Polly
cheerfully. Then she heaved a sigh. "I know, of course, we can't afford
to help them; but I DO feel so