r
the thought of parting with them. To be steward of the Curragh--to own
the best horse of the year--and to win the Derby, were very pleasant
things in themselves; and for what was he going to give over all this
glory, pleasure and profit, to another? To please a girl who had
rejected him, even jilted him, and to appease an old earl who had
already turned him out of his house! No, he wouldn't do it. By the time
that he was half a mile from Igoe's stables he had determined that, as
the girl was gone it would be a pity to throw the horses after her;
he would finish this year on the turf; and then, if Fanny Wyndham was
still her own mistress after Christmas, he would again ask her her
mind. "If she's a girl of spirit," he said to himself--"and nobody
knows better than I do that she is, she won't like me the worse for
having shown that I'm not to be led by the nose by a pompous old
fool like Lord Cashel," and he rode on, fortifying himself in this
resolution, for the second half mile. "But what the deuce should he do
about money?" There was only one more half mile before he was again at
Handicap Lodge.--Guinness's people had his title-deeds, and he knew
he had twelve hundred a year after paying the interest of the old
incumbrances. They hadn't advanced him much since he came of age;
certainly not above five thousand pounds; and it surely was very hard
he could not get five or six hundred pounds when he wanted it so much;
it was very hard that he shouldn't be able to do what he liked with his
own, like the Duke of Newcastle. However, the money must be had: he
must pay Blake and Tierney the balance of what they had won at whist,
and the horse couldn't go over the water till the wind was raised. If
he was driven very hard he might get something from Martin Kelly. These
unpleasant cogitations brought him over the third half mile, and he
rode through the gate of Handicap Lodge in a desperate state of
indecision.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Dot," he said, when he met his friend
coming in from his morning's work; "and I'm deuced sorry to do it, for
I shall be giving you the best horse of his year, and something tells
me he'll win the Derby."

"I suppose 'something' means old Jack Igoe, or that blackguard Grady,"
said Dot. "But as to his winning, that's as it may be. You know the
chances are sixteen to one he won't."

"Upon my honour I don't think they are."

"Will you take twelve to one?"

"Ah! youk now, Dot, I'm not now