just the same old story for every man and woman, with
variations so slight as hardly to be worth counting. And yet it is
natural that every woman thinks her own love story the most interesting
on the face of the earth. No one was ever like her lover, no one was
ever loved like she was. I think it is well it should be so. If it is
only a fancy, it is a pretty fancy, and the world, or rather the women
in it, are much happier for it. I don't know whether it's the same with
men. All the years I have lived I don't understand what a man thinks; I
don't suppose any woman ever does.

"I shall see a bright face watching for me when I pass the post. Not
half an hour now, sweetheart," he said, as he gave me a last kiss, and
again he paused on the verandah to wave his hand and to tell me once
more not to be afraid.

They were shouting for him as he ran across to the corner that did duty
as saddling paddock, and I watched his bright red shirt anxiously. I
could keep my eye on him though I found it impossible to see anybody
else. My mother called me to attend to something--to lay the cloth
for lunch, I think it was--but one glance at my face showed her I was
useless.

"Go, child, go," she said, not unkindly, "I 've been afraid of your
making a fool of yourself over that man. He's not worth it, as you 'll
have found out for yourself before the year is out. Now go and see the
race; I'll lay the table."

I went quietly back on to the verandah, and watched the riders being
weighed, and the weights being adjusted to the saddles; very primitive
were the weights in those days. I saw them wrap up an iron bar in a
blanket and strap it on to Boatman's saddle, for though Paul was a
fairly heavy man the horse was still more heavily weighted, and then
I watched the fifteen horses as they came out and paraded before the
assembled crowd. How plainly it seemed to me Paul Griffith stood out
from the rest, with the big iron-grey horse. He waved his hand to me as
he passed, as one who would say, "There now, you see, there's nothing
to be afraid of," and almost for the moment I felt I had exaggerated my
fears. I waved my hand in return and watched them as they passed on to
the starting post. And then before they got there, there was trouble.
The big grey horse, even though he was on the outside, apparently
objected to the presence of his kind, and I saw him fallen behind and
making desperate efforts to get his head between his forelegs. He kept
the