"She's blown him to pieces before he's left the covert," I said to myself, and immediately withdrew into blameless conversation with my wife and Dr. Fraser. We had gone pretty well down through the luncheon basket, and had arrived at a second and even more balmy--being well-fed--period of peace, before it occurred to Miss Longmuir to look at her watch, and to spoil the best cigarette of the day with agitations concerning the non-appearance of her pony. I suggested that she and Captain Larpent should go in search of it, and for a brief interval the disturbing element was eliminated. It returned, with added agitation, in a quarter of an hour. "Cathie! I can't find Nancy anywhere! We've been all round the course," cried Miss Longmuir from below. "And John Sullivan is nowhere to be found either, and I can't get near Lyney, he's riding in the Trotting Race." "You'll find the pony is somewhere about all right," I said, with the optimism of combined indolence and indifference. "That seems probable," said Andrew, "but the point is, she's somewhere where we're not." "The point is, she ought to be here," said Miss Longmuir, with a very bright colour in her cheeks as she looked up at us. "Heavens! They're very angry!" I murmured to Dr. Fraser. "Well, what do you want us to do?" enquired Dr. Fraser lethargically. "You might take some faint shadow of interest in the fact that Nancy is lost," replied Miss Longmuir. "I think we'd better organise a search-party," said Philippa (who does not smoke). We rose stiffly, descended from our sun-warmed boulders, and took up the White Man's Burden. A sweeping movement was inaugurated, whose objects were to find the pony or her attendant, John Sullivan, or Lyney. "Should you know the pony if you saw her?" I said confidentially to Dr. Fraser, as she and I set forth together. "We've not had it very long," she replied dubiously. "Luckily it's an easy colour. John Sullivan calls it maroan--a sort of mixture of roan and maroon." We advanced from field to field, driving like twin darning-needles through the groups of people, but neither John Sullivan nor the maroan pony transpired. "Come on, come on! The Stepping Match is starting!" shouted some one. Dr. Fraser and I were caught in the tightening mesh of the crowd, as in the intricacies of a trammel net; an irregular thumping of hoofs, and a row of bare and bobbing heads, passing above the heads of the crowd, indicated that the Stepping Match was under way. Lyney's dour face and green jacket were in the lead, and, as before, had he been Diana of the Ephesians, he could not have been more passionately called upon. As it was obviously useless for us to do so at this juncture, we climbed on to a bank near the winning post, and watched the race. Lyney was riding a long-backed yellow animal with a face as cross as his own, and a step as fast as the tick of a watch. "Anny other man than Lyney wouldn't carry that old pony round," said one man.