best for you," said Lola, feeling that she was not getting her
due share of gratitude; "I told you what I had seen in my dreams, a brown
horse, called Bread and Butter, winning easily from all the rest."

"What?" screamed Bertie, jumping up from his sea, "a _brown_ horse!
Miserable woman, you never said a word about it's being a brown horse."

"Didn't I?" faltered Lola; "I thought I told you it was a brown horse. It
was certainly brown in both dreams. But I don't see what the colour has
got to do with it. Nursery Tea and Le Five O'Clock are both chestnuts."

"Merciful Heaven! Doesn't brown bread and butter with a sprinkling of
lemon in the colours suggest anything to you?" raged Bertie.

A slow, cumulative groan broke from the assembly as the meaning of his
words gradually dawned on his hearers.

For the second time that day Lola retired to the seclusion of her room;
she could not face the universal looks of reproach directed at her when
Whitebait was announced winner at the comfortable price of fourteen to
one.

BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS EVE

It was Christmas Eve, and the family circle of Luke Steffink, Esq., was
aglow with the amiability and random mirth which the occasion demanded. A
long and lavish dinner had been partaken of, waits had been round and
sung carols; the house-party had regaled itself with more caroling on its
own account, and there had been romping which, even in a pulpit
reference, could not have been condemned as ragging. In the midst of the
general glow, however, there was one black unkindled cinder.

Bertie Steffink, nephew of the aforementioned Luke, had early in life
adopted the profession of ne'er-do-weel; his father had been something of
the kind before him. At the age of eighteen Bertie had commenced that
round of visits to our Colonial possessions, so seemly and desirable in
the case of a Prince of the Blood, so suggestive of insincerity in a
young man of the middle-class. He had gone to grow tea in Ceylon and
fruit in British Columbia, and to help sheep to grow wool in Australia.
At the age of twenty he had just returned from some similar errand in
Canada, from which it may be gathered that the trial he gave to these
various experiments was of the summary drum-head nature. Luke Steffink,
who fulfilled the troubled role of guardian and deputy-parent to Bertie,
deplored the persistent manifestation of the homing instinct on his
nephew's part, and his solemn thanks earlier in