was only last
week little Cocker was kicked off, but that was a donkey, and they were
using him shamefully," &c. &c. &c. I felt as if a swarm of bees were
humming in my ears, and walked about to make the suspense more
tolerable, but I absolutely had no news at all till Viola's letter
came. It was a long one, for she could be of no service as yet, and to
write letters was at once her use and her solace.

Among the horses which Dermot's Irish agent had been buying for
training purposes was a mare, own sister to Harold's hunter--a splendid
creature of three years old, of wonderful beauty, power, and speed, but
with the like indomitable temper. She would suffer no living thing to
approach her but one little stable-boy, and her own peculiar cat, which
slept on her back, and took all sorts of liberties with her. Her value
would be great if she could be trained, but the training was the
problem. Harold, who, partly from early familiarity, partly from the
gentleness of fearless strength, had a matchless power over horses, had
made acquaintance with her one evening, had been suffered in her box,
had fed her, caressed her cat, and led her round the stable-yard as a
first stage in the conquest of horse by man.

In the early morning, Dermot, quite as fearless, and unwilling that
anyone should do or dare more than himself, had gone alone to make the
same attempt, but no sooner did the mare find him beside her, than she
seized him by the shoulder with her teeth, threw him down, and kicked
and trampled on him. None of the grooms could succeed in rescuing him,
and it was only when Eustace's cry had summoned Harold, that, grasping
the mare's halter and forcing her back with his arm of iron, he made it
possible for Eustace and a groom to drag out poor Dermot's senseless
form, in a state that at first appeared to be death itself. For
several days his condition was so extremely precarious, that Harold
never once left him till his mother arrived, and even after that was
his most effective nurse. He sent me a message, in Viola's letter,
that he had not had a moment to write, and hoped I had not been too
anxious.

After this, Viola wrote every day, and told of gradual improvement in
her brother, and at last how he had been lifted to the sofa, and mamma
hoped in a fortnight or three weeks he might be able to be taken home.
By the next post came a note from Harold, saying he could be spared,
and was coming home, and that very evening