o the stable, and Fleetfoot would throw up his beautiful head
and look reproachfully over the partition at her, for she always stayed
longer with Scrub than with him, and Scrub always got the larger share
of whatever good thing was going.

Poor old Scrub! I think he loved Miss Laura. He was a stupid sort of a
horse, and always acted as if he was blind. He would run his nose up and
down the front of her dress, nip at the buttons, and be very happy if he
could get a bit of her watch-chain between his strong teeth. If he was
in the field he never seemed to know her till she was right under his
pale-colored eyes. Then he would be delighted to see her. He was not
blind, though, for Mr. Wood said he was not. He said he had probably not
been an over-bright horse to start with, and had been made more dull by
cruel usage.

As for the Englishman, the master of these animals, a very strange thing
happened to him. He came to a terrible end, but for a long time no one
knew anything about it. Mr. Wood and Mr. Harry were so very angry
with him that they said they would leave no stone unturned to have him
punished, or at least to have it known what a villain he was. They sent
the paper with the crest on it to Boston. Some people there wrote to
England, and found out that it was the crest of a noble and highly
esteemed family, and some earl was at the head of it. They were all
honorable people in this family except one man, a nephew, not a son, of
the late earl. He was the black sheep of them all. As a young man, he
had led a wild and wicked life, and had ended by forging the name of one
of his friends, so that he was obliged to leave England and take refuge
in America. By the description of this man, Mr. Wood knew that he must
be Mr. Barron, so he wrote to these English people, and told them what
a wicked thing their relative had done in leaving his animals to starve.
In a short time, he got an answer from them, which was, at the same
time, very proud and very touching. It came from Mr. Barron's cousin,
and he said quite frankly that he knew his relative was a man of evil
habits, but it seemed as if nothing could be done to reform him. His
family was accustomed to send a quarterly allowance to him, on
condition that he led a quiet life in some retired place, but their last
remittance to him was lying unclaimed in Boston, and they thought he
must be dead. Could Mr. Wood tell them anything about him?

Mr. Wood looked very thoughtful wh