ad been, he had during this interview yielded to
treatment and followed a prepared path.

That night, in the domestic circle, he went so far as to lay the matter
before Mrs. Brennan.

"He picked out a mare that was as poor as a raven--though she's a good
enough stamp if she was in condition--and tells me to buy her. 'What
price will I give, sir?' says I. 'Ye'll give what they're askin',' says
he, 'and that's sixty sovereigns!' I'm thirty years buying horses, and
such a disgrace was never put on me, to be made a fool of before all
Dublin! Going giving the first price for a mare that wasn't value for
the half of it! Well; he sees the mare then, cut into garters below in
Nassau Street. Devil a hair he cares! Nor never came down to the stable
to put an eye on her! 'Shoot her!' says he, leppin' up on a car.
'Westland Row!' says he to the fella'. 'Drive like blazes!' and away
with him! Well, no matter; I earned my money easy, an' I got the mare
cheap!"

Mrs. Brennan added another spoonful of brown sugar to the porter that
she was mulling in a sauce-pan on the range.

"Didn't ye say it was a young lady that owned the mare, James?" she
asked in a colourless voice.

"Well, you're the devil, Mary!" replied Mr. Brennan in sincere
admiration.

The mail-boat was as crowded as is usual on the last night of the Horse
Show week. Overhead flowed the smoke river from the funnels, behind
flowed the foam river of wake; the Hill of Howth receded apace into the
west, and its lighthouse glowed like a planet in the twilight. Men with
cigars, aggressively fit and dinner-full, strode the deck in couples,
and thrashed out the Horse Show and Leopardstown to their uttermost
husks.

Rupert Gunning was also, but with excessive reluctance, discussing the
Horse Show. As he had given himself a good deal of trouble in order to
cross on this particular evening, and as any one who was even slightly
acquainted with Miss Fitzroy must have been aware that she would decline
to talk of anything else, sympathy for him is not altogether deserved.
The boat swung softly in a trance of speed, and Miss Fitzroy, better
known to a large circle of intimates as Fanny Fitz, tried to think the
motion was pleasant. She had made a good many migrations to England, by
various routes and classes. There had indeed been times of stress when
she had crossed unostentatiously, third class, trusting that luck and a
thick veil might save her from her friends, but the day afte