remainder of the brandy, and hurried downstairs into the street. Immediately opposite the inn-door, and surrounded by a little crowd, a preacher--as is often to be seen on such occasions--was holding forth. The crowd mocked and jeered, but the preacher, secure in the stentorian powers of his lungs, never stopped in his attacks on the wickedness going on around him; and the first words which Lloyd heard as he issued from the inn were, "Prepare to meet thy God!" The gentlemen who had "operated" against Lord Ticehurst's horse in the betting-ring were, on the succeeding day, proved to be perfectly correct in their prognostications; that eminent animal being as far behind the winner of the Leger as his stable-companion had been in the race for the Cup. This result did not affect Lord Ticehurst much, so far as his betting losses were concerned; he had so much money that it mattered little to him whether he won or lost; but he did not like losing the _prestige_ which had attached to his stable ever since Lloyd had succeeded poor old Dobbs and taken the stud in hand And he particularly disliked the half-pitying, half-chaffing way in which several men condoled with him about it. "What's come to you, dear old Etchingham?" said Bobby Maitland, who had been unable to withstand the fascinations of the Doncaster Meeting, and had accordingly persuaded Mr. Stackborough to leave the yacht at anchor off Dover while they came north; "what's come to you, old man? The white jacket and cherry spots seem now always to be where the little boat was--all behind!" "We have not been very lucky lately, have we?" replied his lordship, with an attempt at a grin--he writhed under Bobby's compassionate familiarity; "but we did very well early in the year; and you can't have it always, don't you know." "Ah yes, to be sure, you had some little things, I recollect," said Bobby Maitland more furtively than ever. "Don't know what you call 'little things,' Maitland," said Lord Ticehurst, twitted out of his usual reticence; "the One Thousand, and the Ascot Cup, with two of the best things at Stockbridge. That seems pretty good to me; but I suppose it's nothing to you. You never even won a donkey-race that I heard of." "O yes, he did," said Gilbert Lloyd, who had come up to them unseen, and overheard the last remark; "O yes; Bobby won a donkey-race once, and he was so proud of it, he always takes the animal about with him. He's somewhere in the neighbourhood now, I'll swear!"