reasted the hill together, the young man told her all at some
length.

"Was she much to you?" asked the girl keenly.

Her own mother was all the world to her.

He shook his head.

"Oh! that's all right," replied the girl, relieved and yet resentful,
"if you didn't care."

"In some ways I'm glad for her sake," continued the young man. "She was
always unhappy. You see she was ambitious. One of the disappointments of
her life was that my father wouldn't take a peerage."

"Can't you be happy and ambitious?" asked Boy, peeping at him in the
wary way he loved.

Jim Silver laughed and flicked his whip.

"I doubt it," he said.

"Aren't you ambitious?" she inquired.

He laughed his deep, tremendous laughter, turning on her the face she so
rejoiced in.

"I've told you my one ambition."

"What's that?"

"To breed a National winner."

That brought them back to their favourite subject--Four-Pound-the-Second
and his future.

* * * * *

The foal kept the girl busy, for the old mare died, and Boy had to bring
up the little creature by hand. She didn't mind that, for the summer is
the slack season in the jumping world. Moreover, trouble taken for
helpless young things was never anything but a delight to her. And
fortune favoured her. For the Queen of Sheba, one of her nanny-goats,
had lost her kids, and the milk was therefore available for the foal.

Boy fed him herself by day and night, sleeping in his loose-box for the
first few weeks, she and Billy Bluff, who promised to be good. Monkey
Brand, who had neither wife nor child of his own, and loved the girl
with the doting passion of a nurse, wanted to share her watch, but his
aid was abruptly refused. So the little jockey slept in the loft
instead, to be near at hand, and would bring the girl a cup of tea after
her vigil.

Once, in his mysterious way, he beckoned Silver to follow him. The young
man pursued him up the ladder, treading, of course, on Maudie, who made
the night hideous with her protests.

Up there in the darkness of the loft the little man stole with the
motions of a conspirator to a far trap-door. He opened it gingerly and
listened. From beneath came the sound of regular breathing. Thrusting
his lantern through the dark hole, he beckoned to Silver, who looked
down.

In a corner of the loose-box, on a pile of horse rugs, slept Boy, her
mass of hair untamed now and spreading abroad like a fan of gold. Beside
her o