Patience felt it incumbent upon her to make conversation, although her thoughts were dancing a jig. “You have a beautiful horse,” she said to the young man. His eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “Isn’t she a beauty?” he exclaimed. “She’s taken two prizes and won a race. She’s the daughter—” “Patience doesn’t know anything about horses,” interrupted Hal. “What does she care whose daughter Firefly is?” “Oh, I’m very much interested,” faltered Patience. “Are you really?” cried Mr. Peele, with a smile so beautiful that Patience caught her breath. “I’ve got the rarest book in the country on horses—beautiful pictures—coloured—I’ll bring it up and explain it to you. Tell you a lot of stories about famous horses.” “I shall be delighted.” “Do you ride?” “I used to ride a pony, but I haven’t been on a horse for so long I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like.” “That’s too bad. There’s nothing like it. Makes you feel so good. When I have dyspepsia I just jump on Firefly, and I’m all right in less than no time. I take a canter for dyspepsia—although I can’t—er—always feel at home that way. Ahem!” Patience wanted to tear her hair. It was with an effort that she kept her face from convulsing with disgust. She caught sight of the young man’s intellectual brow, and, without any premonitory consciousness, laughed aloud. Mr. Peele smiled back with the pleasure of appreciated wit, and resumed his cigar. “Bev isn’t such a fool as he looks,” remarked Hal, airily. “Just have patience with him. We all have our little failings.” Patience sat as if turned to clay. She could not talk. All her natural animation had deserted her. She wished they would go and leave her alone. But Hal pulled off her riding gloves, and made herself comfortable on the sofa. As she rattled on, Patience noticed how beautiful her nails were. She turned her own hands over so that the palms lay upward. “Never mind,” said young Peele, in a low tone. “They’re much prettier.” “What’s that?” cried Hal. “What are you blushing about, Patience? How lovely it is to blush like that. I’ve forgotten how—and I’m only twenty-two. There’s tragedy for you. It’s not that I’ve had so many compliments about my beauty, nor yet about my winning ways,—which are my strong point,—but I found so much to blush about when I was first launched upon this wicked world that I exhausted my capacity. And Bev always did tell such naughty stories—” She paused abruptly. “Dear me! perhaps I’ve made a bad break, and prejudiced you against my brother; and I want you to be good friends so that we can have jolly times together. Perhaps you have an ideal man—a sort of Sir Galahad. I haven’t sounded you yet.” “Sir Galahad is not my ideal,” said Patience, with the quick scorn of the woman who is born with intuitive knowledge of man. “I could not find anything interesting in an elongated male infant.”