erturbably.

"Why had you to get rid of it?" asked Fanny, still sympathetic.

"She was a failure!" said Rupert vindictively; "I made a fool of myself
in buying her!"

Fanny looked at him sideways from under her lashes.

"And I had counted on your giving me a mount on her now and then!"

Rupert forgot his wrath, forgot even the twanging banjo.

"I've just got another cob," he said quickly; "she jumps very well, and
if you'd like to hunt her next Tuesday--"

"Oh, thanks awfully, but Captain Carteret has promised me a mount for
next Tuesday!" said the perfidious Fanny.

Mrs. Carteret, on her knees by a refractory footlight, watched with
anxiety Mr. Gunning's abrupt departure from the room.

"Fanny!" she said severely, "what have you been doing to that man?"

"Oh, nothing!" said Fanny.

"If you've put him off singing I'll never forgive you!" continued Mrs.
Carteret, advancing on her knees to the next footlight.

"I tell you I've done nothing to him," said Fanny Fitz guiltily.

"Give me the hammer!" said Mrs. Carteret. "Have I eyes, or have I not?"

"He's awfully keen about her!" Mrs. Carteret said that evening to her
husband. "Bad temper is one of the worst signs. Men in love are always
cross."

"Oh, he's a rotter!" said Captain Carteret conclusively.

In the meantime the object of this condemnation was driving his ten
Irish miles home, by the light of a frosty full moon. Between the shafts
of his cart a trim-looking mare of about fifteen hands trotted lazily,
forging, shying, and generally comporting herself in a way only possible
to a grass-fed animal who has been in the hands of such as Mr. William
Fennessy. The thick and dingy mane that had hung impartially on each
side of her neck, now, together with the major portion of her voluminous
tail, adorned the manure heap in the rear of the Fennessy public-house.
The pallid fleece in which she had been muffled had given place to a
polished coat of iron-grey, that looked black in the moonlight. A week
of over-abundant oats had made her opinionated, but had not, so far,
restored to her the fine lady nervousness that had landed her in the
window of the hat shop.

Rupert laid the whip along her fat sides with bitter disfavour. She was
a brute in harness, he said to himself, her blemished fetlock was uglier
than he had at first thought, and even though she had yesterday schooled
over two miles of country like an old stager, she was too small to carry
him, and s