k fence, as a wild, happy gallop was suddenly broken for
a gentle head to be softly pushed against my hand with the gentlest of
welcomes! They sadly put to shame the million human eyes that so fast
learn the lie of the world, and utter it as falsely as the lips.

The steeple-chaser stood alert, every fiber of his body strung to
pleasurable excitation; the door opened, a hand held him some sugar, and
the voice he loved best said fondly, "All right, old boy?"

Forest King devoured the beloved dainty with true equine unction, rubbed
his forehead against his master's shoulder, and pushed his nose into the
nearest pocket in search for more of his sweetmeat.

"You'd eat a sugar-loaf, you dear old rascal. Put the gas up, George,"
said his owner, while he turned up the body clothing to feel the firm,
cool skin, loosened one of the bandages, passed his hand from thigh to
fetlock, and glanced round the box to be sure the horse had been well
suppered and littered down.

"Think we shall win, Rake?"

Rake, with a stable lantern in his hand and a forage cap on one side of
his head, standing a little in advance of a group of grooms and helpers,
took a bit of straw out of his mouth, and smiled a smile of sublime
scorn and security. "Win, sir? I should be glad to know as when was that
ere King ever beat yet; or you either, sir, for that matter?"

Bertie Cecil laughed a little languidly.

"Well, we take a good deal of beating, I think, and there are not very
many who can give it us; are there, old fellow?" he said to the horse,
as he passed his palm over the withers; "but there are some crushers in
the lot to-morrow; you'll have to do all you know."

Forest King caught the manger with his teeth, and kicked in a bit of
play and ate some more sugar, with much licking of his lips to express
the nonchalance with which he viewed his share in the contest, and his
tranquil certainty of being first past the flags. His master looked at
him once more and sauntered out of the box.

"He's in first-rate form, Rake, and right as a trivet."

"Course he is, sir; nobody ever laid leg over such cattle as all that
White Cockade blood, and he's the very best of the strain," said Rake,
as he held up his lantern across the stable-yard, that looked doubly
dark in the February night after the bright gas glare of the box.

"So he need be," thought Cecil, as a bull terrier, three or four Gordon
setters, an Alpine mastiff, and two wiry Skyes dashed at t