spital, she
would wheel, and, with a face bright as a happy child's, come trotting
to the window for me to pet her. I shouted to the groom to go back to
the stable, for I had no doubt but that she would return to her stall
when I closed the window. Rejoiced at the permission, he departed. After
some thirty minutes, the last ten of which she was standing with her
slim, delicate head in my lap, while I braided her foretop and combed
out her silken mane, I lifted her head, and, patting her softly on
either cheek, told her that she must 'go.' I gently pushed her head out
of the window and closed it, and then, holding up my hand, with the palm
turned toward her, charged her, making the appropriate motion, to 'go
away right straight back to her stable.' For a moment she stood looking
steadily at me, with an indescribable expression of hesitation and
surprise in her clear, liquid eyes, and then, turning lingeringly,
walked slowly out of the yard.

"Twice a day for nearly a month, while I lay in the hospital, did
Gulnare visit me. At the appointed hour the groom would slip her
headstall, and, without a word of command, she would dart out of the
stable, and, with her long, leopardlike lope, go sweeping down the
street and come dashing into the hospital yard, checking herself with
the same glad neigh at my window; nor did she ever once fail, at the
closing of the sash, to return directly to her stall. The groom informed
me that every morning and evening, when the hour of her visit drew near,
she would begin to chafe and worry, and, by pawing and pulling at the
halter, advertise him that it was time for her to be released.

"But of all exhibitions of happiness, either by beast or man, hers was
the most positive on that afternoon when, racing into the yard, she
found me leaning on a crutch outside the hospital building, The whole
corps of nurses came to the doors, and all the poor fellows that could
move themselves--for Gulnare had become a universal favorite, and the
boys looked for her daily visits nearly, if not quite, as ardently as I
did--crawled to the windows to see her. What gladness was expressed in
every movement! She would come prancing toward me, head and tail erect,
and pausing, rub her head against my shoulder, while I patted her glossy
neck; then suddenly, with a sidewise spring, she would break away, and
with her long tail elevated until her magnificent brush, fine and silken
as the golden hair of a blonde, fell in