really care to win?"

"To win, please, O oracle, if it's all the same to you," Hilary said,
supplication in his voice, although his eyes danced.

Allys gave him a long look. "Then you must take Heathflower," she
said. "I have the Wickliffe boy's word for it--he wrote me only
yesterday: 'Miss Allys, if you want to get wealthy, bet all your real
money on that Heathflower thing.'"

"H'm! Who is the Wickliffe boy? Tell us that before we play his tip,"
Adair demanded. Hilary could not speak for laughing.

Allys smiled entrancingly. "The Wickliffe boy--is a knight-errant born
out of time," she said. "I'm wondering if it will last. We came to
know him last summer--mother and I--down at Hollymount, my uncle's
place in Virginia. The Wickliffe boy, Billy by name, lives at
Lyonesse, which is Hollymount's next neighbor. It belongs to Billy's
uncle, the dearest old bachelor--maybe that is the reason the boy has
such reverence for womankind. I don't know which he comes nearest
worshiping--women or horses. Whenever we rode out--he was my steadfast
gallant--he managed somehow to pass through or by or around Haw Bush,
where the Heathflower thing was bred. Old Major Mediwether, her owner,
is Billy's best chum. They match beautifully--though the major is
nearly eighty, and Billy just my age--rising nineteen."

"They must have made it interesting for you. I'm sure you couldn't
tell half so much about either of us," Adair said, with a deeply
injured air.

Allys shook her head at him. "They are dears," she said, emphatically.
"And they taught me a lot I should never have known--about horses and
men."

"Anything specific--as about the Heathflower thing?" Hilary asked,
affecting to speak with awe.

Allys nodded. "A heap," she said. "I can hear Billy now, as we watched
her on the training track, saying: 'She hasn't got any looks--but legs
are better for winnin'. And she must win; she's bound to--whenever she
feels like it, and the track and the weights suit her. She can't help
it--she's got eight full crosses of Blink Bonny blood.'"

"Blink Bonny! H'm! Who was he? What did he do?" Hilary asked.

Allys looked at him severely. "'He' happens to have been 'she,'" she
said. "As for the doing, it was only winning the Derby, with the Oaks
right on top of it. Mighty few mares have ever done that--as you would
know if you had grown up in Virginia, with time to know everything.
Billy does know everything about pedigrees--he can reel them off