She watched him closely for a week. Then one October dawn, the mists hanging white in the hollows, she led him out to the edge of the wood before the lads were about. Only Monkey Brand accompanied her. Herself she held the old pony alongside the new-dug grave, talking to him, stroking his nose. Monkey Brand, of the steady hand and loving heart, did the rest. A quarter of an hour later the girl and the little jockey came back to the yard alone. She was carrying a halter in her hand and talking of Four-Pound-the-Second. The lads watched her surreptitiously and with brimming eyes. Albert, who prided himself on the hardness of his heart, wept and swore he hadn't. "I'll lay she feels it," blubbered Stanley, who was not clever enough to conceal his tears. * * * * * When Silver came down for the week-end, Old Mat told him what had happened. "That's the strength in her," he whispered. "Just took and did it, she and Monkey Brand. Never a word to her mother or me--before or since." But the young man noticed that the girl looked haggard, wistful, more spiritual than usual. He was shy of her, and she of him. When that evening she met him in the yard and said, "Will you come and see?" he was amazed and touched. They stood together by the new-made grave under the wood. Jim was far more moved than when his mother died. "Dear old Ragamuffin!" he said. She seemed to quaver in the dusk. "You mustn't," she said, in strained and muffled voice, and for a moment laid a finger on his arm. Next day, as they were making their Sunday round of the horses together, Silver stopped at Heart of Oak's box. "I don't quite know what to be at with this poor old cormorant," he said, slow and cogitating. "I'm looking for a home for him. But there are no bidders. A bit too good a doer, I guess. Eat 'em out of hearth and home." The girl's eyes flashed on his face and away again. "He's not old," she said, as her hand stroked the pony's neck. "Well, he's like me," the young man replied. "He's older than he was." Boy made a cursory inspection of the pony's mouth. "Eleven off," she said. "That's too old to play polo." She believed it to be a lie, but she did not think she was sufficient an authority on the game to justify her in saying so. "Anyway, I'm getting too heavy for him," Silver went on. "Joint too big for the dish, as they say. That fellow's more my sort, ain't you, old lad?" He nodded to the next loose-box, where his seventeen-hand hunter, Banjo, stood, blowing at them through the bars. "What Heart of Oak wants is a nice light weight just to hack him about the Downs and ease him down into the grave." That evening after supper Jim Silver sang.