easurable
accomplishment she had learned during the first few weeks she had been
at Gray Gables, and she loved it passionately.

In the very hour when they told her that she would for evermore be
blind--stone-blind--the cry that had sprung to her lips was, "And can I
never again ride Black Beauty?" and she bowed her head in a storm of
wild and tempestuous grief.

For many a day after Harry would not even have the name of Black Beauty
mentioned in her hearing. And now how strange that he should bring up
the subject in her presence!

"I am sorry it is raining, Miss Vincent," he said, "for I had promised
myself such a pleasure for this morning. I had intended asking you to
join me in a canter over the country. This is just the season of the
year to enjoy the bracing air. We have a little horse in the stable that
would delight you, if you are a judge of equine flesh. Its very name
indicates what it is--Black Beauty. You ride, of course?"--this
interrogatively.

"Oh, yes!" declared Iris; "and I always thought it would be the height
of my ambition if I could own a horse."

"That would be a very slight ambition to gratify," returned Harry
Kendal. "You may have--"

He was about to add, "Black Beauty," but at that instant his eyes fell
upon Dorothy. She was leaning forward, her sightless eyes turned in his
direction, with a world of anguish in them that would have melted a
heart of stone.

Mrs. Kemp saw the storm approaching, and said, hastily:

"I have always been thinking of buying a pony for my niece, and if she
is a very good girl, she may get one for Christmas."

Harry looked his thanks to Mrs. Kemp for coming to his rescue so timely.

Dorothy lingered after the others had left the breakfast-room, and
called to Harry to wait a minute, as she wished to speak with him.

He had a guilty conscience; he knew what was coming. She meant to ask
him if he intended offering Black Beauty to Miss Vincent, and, of
course, he made up his mind to deny it.

CHAPTER XII.

The long weeks that had passed since the never-to-be-forgotten steamboat
incident on Labor Day passed like a nightmare to poor Jack Garner.

Slowly but surely the knowledge had come to him that Dorothy, his little
sweetheart, had faded like a dream from his life; and as this became a
settled fact in his mind, his whole nature seemed to change.

He grew reckless, morbid, and gay by turns, until his old mother grew
terrified, fearing for his reason