ecial
delight in training before their eyes. At length he led him up to the
tree, and talked to him coaxingly, smoothing his face and patting his
shining neck.

"Where did you get that plaything?" asked Chester, coming out of the
house.

"Ha, how do you do, Ches?" replied Mark, turning around. "When did you
get home?"

He tied the halter to the tree, and began to feel of the animal's
slender ankles, still maintaining a mysterious silence on the subject of
his trade.

"Did you put away the brown horse for this?" asked Chester.

"Where is your father?" was Mark's unsatisfactory rejoinder.

Mr. Royden made his appearance. He was a famous judge of horse-flesh,
and his shrewd eye examined the colt's admirable points with evident
satisfaction.

"Where did you get him?" he inquired.

"How old is he?" asked Mark.

Mr. Royden looked in the horse's mouth a second time, and pronounced him
to be four years old.

"Have you been trading?"

"On the whole," said Mark, "what do you think of him?"

"It's a fine colt; but I think here is a faint appearance of a
ring-bone."

Mr. Royden pressed the animal's leg.

"I'll bet you a hundred dollars on it!" cried Mark, quickly, his eye
kindling.

He was very sensitive about his horse-property, besides being a choleric
man generally; and Mr. Royden only smiled, and shook his head.

"Have you got rid of Jake?"

"Never mind that; tell me what the colt is worth."

Mr. Royden expressed a favorable opinion of the beast, but declined to
commit himself.

"Well, it don't make no difference," said Mark, with a smile of
satisfaction. "He suits me very well," he added, with an oath.

The clergyman's countenance changed. The smile faded from his lips, and
he glanced anxiously from Mark to the little boys who sat on the grass
at his feet.

"Better look out about swearing 'fore the minister," said Sam, in a low
tone, to Mark.

For the first time the latter regarded the old man attentively. At sight
of his thin white locks, the color mounted to the jockey's brow; and
when Father Brighthopes raised his calm, sad eyes, Mark's fell before
them.

But Mark had some manly traits of character, with all his faults.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, frankly. "I wouldn't have used
profane language, if I had known there was a minister within hearing."

"My friend," replied Father Brighthopes, in a kind but impressive tone,
"you have my forgiveness, if that is of any account; but it se