WHEN Mr. Waddy rang his bell in the morning after the stable scene, no Chin Chin appeared, and inquiry developed the fact that Chin Chin was sick. Ira’s toilet may, therefore, not have been quite so accurate as usual, and the polish on his neat calfskins not so mirrorlike. In fact, he had too many anxieties crowding around, to concern himself much with cravat ties and the gleaming boot. He sent his groom, a Bowery boy, pur sang, to care for Chin Chin.  
“He ain’t dangerous, sir,” that worthy returned to report, “but he’s been a-gulpin’ down suthin’ as has kicked up a bobbery in his innards.”
 
“Very well,” said Mr. Waddy; “have Pallid ready for eleven o’clock. How does he look this morning?”
 
“He’s as gay, sir, as a house afire,” Bowery assured him. “Yer kin bet yer life on it, he’ll rake ’em down!” and Bowery departed, humming cheerfully to himself, confident of being richer ere the day was over.
 
[242]Major Granby dropped in upon his friend a moment later.
 
“I’m losing my interest in this race,” said Waddy, “since Dunstan’s unwillingness to ride has become so evident. Poor fellow! I’m afraid there’s very little hope for Diana.”
 
“Don’t say so,” protested Granby; “the world cannot spare that noble girl. I was just speaking with Skerrett of her. He says she is the only woman he ever knew who is afraid of neither fresh air nor sunshine. And Clara—how can that beautiful friendship be severed? You can hardly imagine how those sisters have quartered themselves in my rusty old heart. Did you ever hear them speak of Miss Sullivan, their governess? She must be a remarkable person.”
 
“Sullivan? No,” said Waddy, connecting the name at once with his preserver at The Island. “A lady of that name did me a service once. I must ask them about her.”
 
“Dunstan will ride without fail, I suppose?” asked Granby. “We must beat that fellow Belden.”
 
“Dunstan will hold to his word; if it were to drive the chariot of Tullia,” answered Ira, who had read his friend’s character aright.
 
Mrs. Budlong had an interview with Arabella early that morning. Arabella looked very tearful, but there was also a new expression in her face,[243] thanks to Peter Skerrett—one might almost call it determination.
 
“Well, my dear,” said the step-mother, “what shall I say to the lover? He is eager for the kind word of encouragement,” and Mrs. De Flournoy played affectionately with the young lady’s curls.
 
“Tell him I hate him!” cried the poor penitent, bursting into tears again. “I hope, madam, you will never mention his name to me—no, not once more! Oh! oh! you hurt me.”
 
The affectionate mamma had given the curls a little tug.
 
“You silly fool!” said she, “don’t you know he can ruin your prospects? You’ll offend your father so that he’ll discard you, and then what will you do? If you are so dishonourable and disobedient, when we are striving for your good, we shall let you go to the destruction you choose.”
 
“I hope I shall find some friends who will not think me dishonourable,” sobbed poor Arabella, thinking with rueful gratitude and confidence of honest Peter and his fraternal feelings. “I’m not dishonourable. I’m trying to do right. I may have been foolish, but that—man—he can’t be a gentleman, or he would not persecute me so. I don’t know what reason you can have for wanting to make me miserable.”
 
“My reasons are of course wise and judicious,” retorted Mrs. B. “I will see you once more, and[244] then, if you do not choose to yield, you will be the cause of the éclatant scandal of the season. You won’t think of going to the race with those red eyes. I wouldn’t take you if you did.”
 
Poor Arabella was the only one who did not go; everybody went; all that we have encountered in this history and platoons of others.
 
The first beach at Newport is straightish, and a mile or so in length,—a very long “or so,” when you are dragged over it in the unwilling family coach, by stagnant steeds—a very short mile when the beautiful comrade whose presence is a consecration and a poet’s dream, says “Shall we gallop?” and cheats with fleeting transport, as she passes, the winds from summer seas, that sigh to stay and dally with her curls.
 
Between beach number one and beach number two is an interregnum of up and down, a regency of dust. Then comes the glorious second beach. You will hardly see anything more beautiful than this long, graceful sweep, silvery grey in the sunshine, with a keener silver dashed along its edge by curving wave that follows curving wave. You will hardly see any place gayer than this same wide path beside the exhilarating dash of the Atlantic, on a gay afternoon of August—hundreds of carriages, more or less well-appointed; scores of riders, more or less well-mounted or -seated.
 
Thus, then, to the second beach between grey[245] rocks, grey sand slopes, and grey meadows beyond, and on the other hand the gleaming glory of the sea, came at eleven that morning, to see the race, all the snobs and all the nobs. Peter Skerrett and his aides marshalled them. Mrs. Budlong, alone in her carriage, bowed and smiled very pleasantly to Peter. However critical that person may have felt her position, and whatever desperate resolve she might entertain for escape, through whatever postern, from the infamy of public dismissal, she was quite as usual. No; she was even handsomer than usual, more quietly splendid in attire, and reclining with calmer luxuriousness of demeanour on her cushions of satin.
 
Among the many traps, drags, and go-carts, of various degrees of knowingness, Mr. Waddy’s was conspicuous. Major Granby, old Budlong, and Paulding accompanied him. Old Bud said it made him quite young again to see the boys out.
 
“But, sir,” he added, “why do they bump on the outside of a horse, when they might sit and grow fat in a buggy? There’s Tim, sir, my boy Tim, is growing quite thin and haggard; he says riding don’t agree with him. I’m afraid he won’t do much with Drummer to-day.”
 
A straight race, on a dead level, lacks features of varied brilliancy. Peter Skerrett had arranged that the field should start alternately from either end, that all might see alphas and omegas. Thus the[246] proud and numerous start and the disarrayed and disappointed finishes might be viewed by all spectators. All might share the breathless sympathies of doubts and enthusiasms for the winner.
 
Peter Skerrett, too busy to think of poor Arabella, who, in her bower, was thinking much of him and sighing as she thought how unworthy she had been in her long education of vanities and follies; Peter now brought forward his rank of equestrians. The sea was still, and hardly rustled as it crept along the sands, unterrifying to horse or man; yet the air was cool and the sun not too ardent to be repelled by a parasol.
 
As the line formed, the ladies chose their champion men and bet gloves recklessly on them; the gentlemen chose champion horses, with a view also to riders, and bet reckfully.
 
It appeared that Tim Budlong was—bluntly—drunk, and Drummer lost his backers. There was a murmur of sympathy as Dunstan rode up on Pallid; sympathy admiring for this pair, a best of the animal and a best of the man, and sympathy pitiful for the man of a soul that must bear the anxiety and perhaps the sorrow that all knew of. A noble fellow and a generous the common suffrage made him, already distinguished for bold ability and frank disdain of cowardice and paltering. When experience had made him a little more indulgent to the limping progress and feeble vision and awkward drill of[247] mankind, rank and file, he would be a great popular leader. So thought the Nestors, feeling themselves fired by the fervours of this young Achilles.
 
Belden had overdone his costume, as such men often do. It was urgent with him to look young; he achieved only a gaudy autumnal bloom. Knockknees, malgré that ungainly quality of his legs, was an imposing, masculine style of horse. As he passed, stopping to speak intimately to Mrs. De Flournoy, several of the intuitionless women envied that person and several men called him “lucky dog.”
 
Blinders was not a lady’s man. His horse was, however, one of the favourites. Very few men but Blinders would have ventured to mount, or even approach, such a rascal brute. Nosegay knew that his master was invincible, but he wished to inform him that they were a pair of invincibles; accordingly, despising the two snaffles, the one in hand, the other around the rider’s waist for steady drag, Nosegay would fling his head about and then move on without reference to requests that he tarry or stand at ease.
 
“That there ’oss’ll overrun ’isself,” said Figgins to Mr. Waddy’s Bowery Boy, with whom he had bets on Pallid, money up. “’E’ll make a four-mile ’eat hout of hevery mile ’eat.”
 
“Gaaz, Johnny Bull!” returned the Bowery. “Thar ain’t no hoss in a hide as kin git away from[248] Mr. Blinders. It caan’t be did. He’s one er the bohoys, he is.”
 
Bob O’Link’s horse was a mare. The sentimental fellow had named her Lalla Rookh. She was a delicate beauty, but it was quite evident that her master would not give himself the trouble to win.
 
Scalper was so busy caricaturing Billy Dulger that he was near forgetting to present himself with Gossoon. Little Skibbereen recalled him to his duty. Skibby wanted to see his horse go, and could hardly forgive his mamma for keeping him at her side.
 
“Why shouldn’t I break my neck, ma, if I like?” he protested. “I’ll go and break it the day I’m twenty-one and leave my property to the Tract Society.”
 
Sir Com Ambient said good-naturedly that he merely started to make one more in the field. This was clear to the observing eye.
 
Billy Dulger, having achieved his heart’s desire, rode up very unwillingly. The bookkeeper had sent him on garments much too refulgent for this, or any occasion. He was rather conspicuous per se as the Great Accepted of Miss Center. The Billy-dulgerid epic, having already been brought to its finale, nothing more need be said of its hero’s performances in the race, except that his horse did not disappoint the stableman, his owner; did not win a heat; did not start a second time; and that Billy’s[249] hair was full of sand for several days after this eventful one.
 
Preparations are of years, acts of moments. To run a mile takes a minute and so many seconds, disappointingly brief. Poor, dissolute Tim Budlong............