But I daresay they are no worse than any other place. I've heard so much since I was here, that really——"

"That really what?"

"That sometimes it seems useless like to be particular."

"Of course—all rot. Well, will you come next Sunday?"

"Certainly not on Sunday."

The Gaffer had engaged him as footman: his livery would be ready by Saturday, and he would enter service on Monday week. This reminded them that henceforth they would see each other every day, and, speaking of the pain it would give his mother when he came running downstairs to go out with the carriage, he said—

"It was always her idea that I shouldn't be a servant, but I believe in doing what you gets most coin for doing. I should like to have been a jockey, and I could have ridden well enough—the Gaffer thought better at one time of my riding than he did of Ginger's. But I never had any luck; when I was about fifteen I began to grow…. If I could have remained like the Demon——"

Esther looked at him, wondering if he were speaking seriously, and really wished away his splendid height and shoulders.

A few days later he tried to persuade her to take a ticket in a shilling sweepstakes which he was getting up among the out and the indoor servants. She pleaded poverty—her wages would not be due till the end of August. But William offered to lend her the money, and he pressed the hat containing the bits of paper on which were written the horses' names so insinuatingly upon her that a sudden impulse to oblige him came over her, and before she had time to think she had put her hand in the hat and taken a number.

"Come, none of your betting and gambling in my kitchen," said Mrs. Latch, turning from her work. "Why can't you leave that innocent girl alone?"

"Don't be that disagreeable, mother; it ain't betting, it's a sweepstakes."

"It is all the same," muttered Mrs. Latch; "it always begins that way, and it goes on from bad to worse. I never saw any good come from it, and Heaven knows I've seen enough misfortune."

Margaret and Sarah paused, looking at her open-mouthed, a little perplexed, holding the numbers they had drawn in both hands. Esther had not unfolded hers. She looked at Mrs. Latch and regretted having taken the ticket in the lottery. She feared jeers from Sarah, or from Grover, who had just come in, for her inability to read the name of the horse she had drawn. Seeing her dilemma, William took her paper from her.

"Silver Braid…. by Jingo! She has got the right one."

At that moment the sound of hoofs was heard in the yard, and the servants flew to the window.

"He'll win," cried William, leaning over the women's backs, waving his bony hand to the Demon, who rode past on Silver Braid. "The Gaffer will bring him to the post as fit as a fiddle."

"I think he will," said Mr. Leopold. "The rain has done us a lot of good; he was beginning to go a bit short a week ago. We shall want some more rain. I should like to see it come down for the next week or more."

Mr. Leopold's desires looked as if they were going to be fulfilled. The heavens seemed to have taken the fortunes of the stable in hand. Rain fell generally in the afternoon and night, leaving the mornings fine, and Silver Braid went the mile gaily, becoming harder and stronger. And in the intermittent swish of showers blown up from the sea Woodview grew joyous, and a conviction of ultimate triumph gathered and settled on every face except Mrs. Barfield's and Mrs. Latch's. And askance they looked at the triumphant little butler. He became more and more the topic of conversation.