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 ruinæ," 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-andisn'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.

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

think of keeping her; I'll return her at once.

unselfish

"Unselfish what?"

Oh! Daisy! You

"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. people stare so if one stops. You can speak the truth walking, I suppose, as well as standing still."

"Let's move on;

"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

with interest, laid her hand on exactly the same spot when his was withdrawn.

"You found her as good as she looks," said Miss Douglas. "Oh ! Daisy in that grass country it must have felt like being in heaven!" I don't know about that," said the light dragoon; "but we were not very far off, sometimes, on the tops of those banks. However, I found nothing could touch her in jumping, or come near her for pace. Not a horse was within a mile of us for the last ten minutes; so I took her down to The Curragh-and-Miss Douglas, can you— can you keep a secret?"

"Of course I can," replied the lady. "What a question, Daisy, as if I wasn't much more like a man than a woman!"

His face assumed an expression of solemnity befitting the communication he had to impart. His voice sank to a whisper, and he looked stealthily around, as if fearful of being overheard.

"We tried her at seven pound against Robber-Chief, four Irish miles over a steeple-chase course. She gave the Chief seven pound, her year, and a beating. Why, it makes her as good as The Lamb!" Notwithstanding the gravity of such a topic, Miss Douglas laughed

outright.

"How like you, Daisy, to run away with an idea. It does not make her as good as The Lamb, because you once told me yourself that Robber-Chief never runs kindly in a trial. You see I don't forget things. But all the same, I dare say she's as good again, the darling, and I'm sure she's twice as good-looking!"

"Now, don't you see, Miss Douglas," proceeded Daisy, “I've been thinking you and I might do a good stroke of business if we stood in together. My idea is this. I enter her at Punchestown for the Great United Service Handicap. I send her down to be trained on the quiet at a place I know of, not fifteen miles from where we're standing now. Nobody can guess how she's bred, nor what she is. They mean to put crushing weights on all the public runners. She'll be very well in, I should say, at about eleven stone ten. I'll ride her myself, for I know the course, and I'm used to that country. If we win, you must have half the stakes, and you can back her, besides, for as much as you please. What do you say to it?"

"I like the idea immensely!" answered Miss Douglas. "Only I don't quite understand about the weights and that But Daisy, are you sure it isn't dangerous? I mean for you. I've heard of such horrible accidents at those Irish steeple-chases."

"I tell you she can't fall," answered this sanguine young sports"and I hope I'm not likely to tumble off her !"

man;

Miss Douglas hesitated.

"Couldn't I-" she said shily;

"couldn't I ride her in her gallops myself?"

He laughed; but his face clouded over the next moment.

"I ought not to have asked you," said he; "it seems so selfish to take away your favourite; but the truth is, Miss Douglas, I'm so awfully hard up that, unless I can land a good stake, it's all U—P with me!"

"Why didn't you tell me?" exclaimed Miss Douglas; "why didn't you Here she checked herself, and continued in rather a hard voice, "Of course, if you're in a fix, it must be got out of, with as little delay as possible. So take the mare, by all means; and another time, Daisy Well, another time don't be so shy of asking your friend's advice. If I'd been your brother-officer, for instance, should I have seemed such a bad person to consult ?"

"By Jove, you're a trump!" he exclaimed impulsively, adding, in qualification of this outspoken sentiment, "I mean, you've so good a heart, you ought to have been a man !"

She coloured with pleasure; but her face turned very grave and sad, while she replied, "I wish I had been! Don't you know what Tennyson says? Never mind, you don't read Tennyson very often, I dare say!"

"I can't make out what fellows mean in poetry," answered Daisy. "But I like a good song, if it's in English; and I like best of all to hear you play!"

"Now, what on earth has that to do with it?" she asked impatiently. "We are talking about the mare. Send round for her tomorrow morning, and you can enter her at once. Has she got a

name ?"

"It used to be The Dark Ladye," he answered, smiling rather mischievously, "out of compliment to you. But I've changed it now.”

"I ought to be very much flattered. And to what?"

"To Satanella."

She bit her lip, and tried to look vexed; but she couldn't be angry with Daisy, so laughed heartily as she waved him a good-bye, and cantered home.

CHAPTER IV.

MRS. LUSHINGTON.

WITH all her independence of spirit, it cannot be supposed that Miss Douglas went to and fro in the world of London without a chaperon. On women, an immunity from supervision, and what we