“I’m sure ma’am, the creature must be perfectly so; I’ve never seen anything so fine ma’am, ’pon my word,” he continued, the swelled veins of his forehead betraying his stifled enthusiasm. “Do you mean by that, Thomas, you have never seen that horse before?” Thomas hesitated. “Say what you wish to say, Thomas,” prompted the young mistress, with a hasty glance at his face. “Thanky, ma’am. Well, you know, ma’am, that your lawyer, sometime last fall, had the poor master’s trainer sell off some of the horses from his stable. I’m sure, ma’am, that this is the one the trainer complained so much of selling, but Mr. Grannan had offered a big price, and the lawyer made him sell her.” She had already stepped forward to caress the eager, gazing animal, timidly, for she could not resist the earnest, entreating look it bestowed, but, when Thomas spoke the word “master,” she drew back sharply and stood motionless. “Never fear, ma’am,” said the coachman, “she won’t harm, ma’am.” “So, it’s Mr. Grannan’s horse,” she repeated coldly; and then, hastily turning, she passed through the house to the front door, which the boy, anticipating her intention, with much dignity now held open. A moment later she had descended the steps, and was in her brougham with Thomas upon the box, and the austere footman gazing expectant at the window. “To my lawyer’s office,” she said, calmly. II “The spring sunshine gilded the tops of the park trees. Here and there the branches of the tall elms spread their tinted green; while the maples and chestnuts glowed in almost the full glory of their new leaves.” Scarlet blossoms, on the otherwise apparently naked shrubs bedded in the green lawns, facades of the brown stone mansions and glass-fronted shops, could be seen everywhere, on either side of the drive. The scenes through which she now passed—looking upon, yet seeing dimly—aroused within her a miserable consciousness that the memory of her husband, who had once so much loved these very scenes, had also faded with the spring gladness into an amazing dimness. So Grannan had sent her the horse! In the first year of her widowhood she had, by chance, met Grannan. It was on the occasion of the anniversary of her twenty-second birthday. She had a relative—an old aunt—who had visited her from San Francisco. She knew Grannan in her home there, and, meeting him in the city had invited him to her house to dine. In the beginning of the second year of her widowhood, Grannan had offered himself; but, the look that she had then given him, froze the declaration of love upon his lips, and caused him to feel and know the utter hopelessness of his offer. She had not seen him since then. And now, just at the end of the second year of widowhood, he had offered her the gift.