The lady was Alice, the horse Cardigan. In two minutes she had reduced him to obedience, and, returning at a trot, ranged up alongside of the dog-cart. Her light hand seemed to have a wonderfully soothing effect on the fiery fretting chestnut. She had evidently given him a good gallop, if one was to judge by the state of heat he was in and the lather on his sides, and so subdued his exuberant impulses, but his wild eye and nervous ears spoke volumes: “Only for the lady on my back,” they said, “I would think very little of jumping into that dog-cart.” “So you have come back?” exclaimed Alice cheerfully, “and not on a shutter,” with a glance at her husband. “So you see,” he replied shortly. “After all, it was only a flat race! I need not have been so frightened. Did you win?” “He did, splendidly! by six lengths, hands down,” replied Captain Vaughan enthusiastically. “You ought to have been there to see for yourself, Lady Fairfax. There has been capital racing.” “What has brought you home so early?” she asked, not noticing his suggestion. “Oh, we had had enough of it; the best races had been run, and we thought we would get away before the crowd.” “Alice,” said her husband, suddenly tossing away his cigar, “I thought I had forbidden you to ride Cardigan?” “Did you!” she replied airily; “just in the same way that I _forbid_ you to ride races,” and she laughed as she leant over and patted Cardigan’s neck. “‘Live and let live’ is our motto, is it not, Captain Vaughan?” “_You_ won’t live long, at any rate, if you persist in riding that brute,” returned her husband angrily. “He calls you a brute, Mr. C.; do you hear that? You and I understand each other perfectly,” she said, stooping forward again and patting his hard neck, thereby more fully displaying her perfect figure and her perfectly-cut habit. “You have torn your glove, Lady Fairfax. Why, the whole palm is gone!” exclaimed Captain Vaughan. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she replied, looking at it hurriedly, but not before a deep red weal across her delicate white palm was visible to both gentlemen. “He pulls a good bit, does he not?” asked Captain Vaughan dubiously. “A little, when he is fresh; but he knows me. All the grooms are afraid of him, and he knows that; but I’m not a bit afraid of you, am I?” addressing herself once more to her steed, and emphasizing her remark with a touch of her whip. His reply was a plunge that would have unseated a less experienced rider. Another touch of the whip--another plunge. Captain Vaughan looked askance at his friend. For a man who had just won a race, on an awkward horse, in a first-class manner, he looked decidedly nervous. Never had Captain Vaughan seen fear written on Reginald Fairfax’s face till now, and there it was plainly to be seen, as Cardigan executed plunge after plunge before them down the road. Subdued at last by his mistress’s voice, they again joined the dog-cart.