lengthways, with many plunges and lashings out, and whiskings of her long square tail, a black mare with a side-saddle was gradually approaching the door. The groom who led her seemed not a little relieved when he got her to stand by the kerb-stone, patting her nose and whispering many expletives suggestive of composure and docility.

This attendant, though gloved, booted, and belted for a ride, felt obviously that one such charge as he had taken in hand was enough. He meant to fetch his own horse from the stable, as soon as his mistress was in the saddle.

A staid person, out of livery, came to the door, looking up and down the street, with the weary air of a man who resides chiefly in his pantry. He condescended to remark, however, that "Miss Douglas was a-comin' down, and the mare's coat had a polish on her, same as if she'd been varnished!"

While the groom winked in reply, Miss Douglas appeared on the pavement; and the baker, delivering loaves three doors off, turned round to wonder and approve.

"May I put you up?" said the General, meekly, almost timidly.

How different the tone, and yet it was the same voice that had heretofore rung out so firm and clear in stress of mortal danger, with its stirring order

"The Light Brigade will advance!"

"No, thank you," said Miss Douglas coldly; "Tiger Tim does the heavy business. Now, Tim-one-two-three !"

"Three" landed her lightly in the saddle, and the black mare stood like a sheep. One turn of her foot, one kick of her habit— Miss Douglas was established where she looked her best, felt her best, and liked best to be in the world.

So she patted the black mare's neck, a caress her favourite acknowledged with such a bound as might have unseated Bellerophon; and followed by Tim, on a good-looking chesnut, rode off with her admiring General to the Park.

Who is Miss Douglas? This was the question everybody asked, and answered too, for that matter, but not satisfactorily. Blanche Douglas, such was the misnomer of this black-browed lady, had been in London for two years, yet given no account of her antecedents, shown no vouchers for her identity. To cross-question her, was not a pleasant undertaking, as certain venturous ladies found to their cost. They called her "The Black Douglas," indeed, out of spite, till a feminine wit and genius of the brightest lustre gave her

the nickname of "Satanella ;" and as Satanella she was henceforth known in all societies.

After that, people seemed more re-assured, and discovered, or possibly invented for her, such histories as they considered satisfactory to themselves. She was the orphan, some said, of a speculative naval officer, who had married the cousin of a peer. Her father was drowned off Teneriffe; her mother died of a broken heart. The girl was brought up in a west-country school till she came of age; she had a thousand a year, and lived near South Audley Street with her aunt, a person of weak intellect, like many old women of both sexes. She was oddish herself, and rather bad style; but there was no harm in her.

This was the good-natured version. The ill-natured one was the above travestied. The father had cut his throat; the mother ran away from him, and went mad; and the west-country school was a French convent. The aunt and the thousand a year were equally fabulous. She was loud, bold, horsy, more than queer, and where the money came from that kept the little house near South Audley Street and enabled her to carry on, Goodness only knew!

Still she held her own, and all the old men fell in love with her. "My admirers," she told Mrs. Cullender, who told me, "are romantic-very, and rheumatic also, à faire pleurer. The combination, my dear, is touching, but exceedingly inconvenient."

Mrs. Cullender further affirms that old Buxton would have married and made her a peeress, had she but held up her finger, and declares she saw Counsellor Cramp go down on his knees to her, falling forward on his hands, however, before he could get up again, and thus finishing his declaration, as it were, on all fours.

But she would have none of these, inclining rather to men of firmer mould, and captivating especially the gallant defenders of their Admirals are all susceptible more or les country by sea and land. and fickle as the winds they record in their log-books. So scarcely allowed them to count in her score; but at one time sh seven general-officers on the list, with colonels and maj proportion.

Her last conquest was St. Josephs-a handsome man, and cold, reserved, deep-hearted, veiling under an icy demean per sensitive as a girl's. How many women would have lead such a captive up and down the Ride, and show keeper shows off his bear in its chain! How paraded their sovereignty over this stern and qy

own hearts were gone, and they longed to change places with their victim, to serve where they had thought only to command!

In February London begins to awake out of its winter sleep. Some of the great houses have already got their blinds up, and their doorsteps cleaned. Well-known faces are hurrying about the streets, and a few equestrians spot the ride, like early flies crawling over a window-pane. The black mare lashed out at one of these with a violence that brought his heart into the soldier's mouth, executing thereafter some half-dozen long and dangerous plunges. Miss Douglas sat perfectly still, giving the animal plenty of rein; then administered one severe cut with a stiff riding-whip, that left its mark on the smooth shining skin; and having thus asserted herself, made much of her favourite, as if she loved it all the better for its wilfulness.

"I wish you wouldn't ride that brute!" said the General tenderly. "She'll get out of your hand some of these days, and then there'll be

a smash!"

"Not ride her!" answered Miss Douglas, opening her black eyes wide. "Not ride my own beautiful pet! General, I should deserve never to get into a side-saddle again !"

"For the sake of your friends," urged the other, drawing very close with a pressure of the leg to his own horse's side; "for the sake of those who care for you; for-for-my-sake-Miss Douglas !"

His hand was almost on the mare's neck, his head bent towards its rider. If a man of his age can look "spoony," the General was at that moment a fit subject for ridicule to every Cornet in the Service.

Laughing rather scornfully, with a turn of her wrist she put a couple of yards between them.

"Not even for your sake, General, will I give up my darling. Do you think I have no heart?"

His brow clouded. He looked very stern and sad, but gulped down whatever he was going to say, and asked instead, “Why are you so fond of that mare? She's handsome enough, no doubt, and can go fast; but still, she is not the least what I call a lady's horse."

"That's my secret," answered Miss Douglas playfully; "wouldn't you give the world to know?"

She had a very winning way, when she chose, all the more taking from its contrast to her ordinary manner. He felt its influence now.

"I believe I would give you the world if I had it, and not even ask for your secret, in exchange," was his reply. "One more turn, Miss Douglas, I entreat you (for she was edging away as if for

home). It is not near luncheon-time, and I was going to say-Miss Douglas-I was going to say”

"Don't say it now!" she exclaimed, with a shake of her bridle that brought the mare in two bounds close to the footway. "I must go

and speak to him! I declare she knows him again. He's got a new umbrella. There he is!"

"Who?"

"Why! Daisy !"

"D-n Daisy!" said the General, and rode moodily out of the Park.

CHAPTER III.

DAISY.

MR. WALTERS piqued himself on his sang-froid. If the fractus orbis had gone, as he would have expressed it, "to blue smash," "impavidum ferient ruine," he would have contemplated the predicament from a ludicrous rather than a perplexing point of view. Nevertheless, his eye grew brighter, and the colour deepened on his cheek, when Miss Douglas halted to lean over the rails, and shake hands with him.

He was very fond of the black mare, you see, and believed firmly in her superiority to her kind.

"Oh! Daisy! I'm so glad to see you!" said Miss Douglas. “I never thought you'd be in London this open weather. I'm so much obliged to you, you're the kindest person in the world, and—and— isn't she looking well?"

"You're both looking well," answered Daisy gallantly; "I thought I couldn't miss you if I walked up this side of the row and down the other."

"Oh! Daisy! You didn't come on purpose!" exclaimed the lady, with rather a forced laugh, and symptoms of a blush.

For answer, I am sorry to say, this young gentleman executed a solemn wink. The age of chivalry may or may not be on the wane, but woman-worshippers of to-day adopt a free-and-easy manner in expressing their adoration, little flattering to the shrines at which they bow.

"Did you really want to see me?" continued Miss Douglas ? "and why couldn't you call? I'd have ridden with you this morning if I'd known you were in town."

"Got no quad," answered the laconic Daisy.

66

And yet you lent me your mare!" said she. "Indeed, I can't

think of keeping her; I'll return her at once. Oh! Daisy! You unselfish"

"Unselfish what?”

"Goose!" replied the lady. "Now, when will you have her back? She's as quiet again as she used to be, and I do believe there isn't such another beauty in the world."

"That's why I gave her to you," answered Daisy. "It's no question of lending; she's yours, just as much as this umbrella's mine. Beauty; I should think she was a beauty. I don't pay compliments, or I'd say there's a pair of you! Now, look here, Miss Douglas, I might ask you to lend her to me for a month, perhaps, if I saw my way into a real good thing. I don't think I ever told you how I came to buy that mare, or what a clipper she is!"

"Tell me now!" said Miss Douglas eagerly. "Let's move on; people stare so if one stops. You can speak the truth walking, I suppose, as well as standing still."

"It's truth I'm telling you!" he answered, with a laugh. "I heard of that mare up in Roscommon when she was two years old. I was a year and a half trying to buy her; but I got her at last, for I'm not an impatient fellow, you know, and I never lose sight of a thing I fancy I should like."

"Watch and wait!" said the lady.

"Yes, I watched and I waited," he continued, "till at last they gave me a ride. She'd had a good deal of fun with a sort of go-cart they tried to put her in; and when I saw her I think her owner was a little out of conceit with his venture. She was very poor and starved-looking,—not half the mare she is now; but she ran away with me for nearly two miles, and I found she could—just! So I bargained, and jawed, and bothered, though I gave a hatful of money for her all the same. When I got her home to barracks, I had her regularly broke and bitted; but she never was easy to ride, and she never will be!"

For all comment, Miss Douglas drew the curb-rein through her fingers, while the mare bent willingly and gently to her hand.

"Oh! I know they all go pleasant with you!" said Daisy. "Men and horses, you've the knack of bringing them to their bridles in a day. Well, I hunted her that season in Meath and Kildare; but somehow we never dropped into a run. At last one morning, late in the season, we turned out a deer in the Dublin country, and took him in exactly twenty-seven minutes. Then this child knew what its plaything was made of. Didn't I, old girl?"

He patted the mare's neck, and her rider, whose eyes brightened