"I have no hesitancy in saying Robin Adair," he declared. "He has everything in his favor." "I have an idea that the little brown horse with the white stockings will win." He laughed, and a look indicative of superior judgment broke over his face. "I feel very sure that your favorite, Queen Bess, will lose, Miss Sally," he said. "I feel very confident that she will win," she said. He shook his head. "I should like to make a wager with you on that," she cried. "A box of candy--anything you like," he replied, airily; "but I must warn you that it is not quite the correct thing to wager with a lady, especially when you are sure that she will lose." "I'll take my chances," she replied, a strange look flashing into her excited blue eyes. "You have not told me what the wager is to be." For a moment the girl caught her breath and gave a lightning-like glance about her. No one was listening, no one would hear. "You have not told me," said Jay Gardiner, gallantly, as he bent forward. She turned and faced him, and her answer came in an almost inaudible whisper. But he heard it, though he believed he had not heard aright. "Do I understand you to say that your hand is the wager?" he asked, surprisedly. "Yes!" she answered. For a moment he looked at her in the utmost astonishment. Then a laugh suffused his fair face. Surely this was the strangest wager that he had ever heard of. He was used to the jolly larks of girls; but surely this was the strangest of them all. He knew that there was little hope of Queen Bess winning the race. But he answered, with the utmost gravity: "Very well; I accept your wager. Your hand shall be the prize, if the little mare wins." "She is so very young--only eighteen," he said to himself, "that she never realized what she was saying. It was only a jolly, girlish prank." If there had been in his mind the very slightest notion that Queen Bess would win, he should have refused to accept the wager. But she surely would not win; he was certain of that. So, with an amused smile, he acquiesced in the strange compact. In the midst of the talking and laughing, the horses came cantering on to the course. It was a beautiful sight, the thorough-bred horses with their coats shining like satin, except where the white foam had specked them, as they tossed their proud heads with eager impatience, the gay colors of their riders all flashing in the sunlight. A cheer goes up from the grand stand, then the starter takes his place, and the half-dozen horses, after some little trouble, fall into something like a line. There is an instant of expectancy, then the flag drops, and away the horses fly around the circular race-track.