He raised the glass and would have drunk from it, but, now, alas! the glass was empty.  It surprised and grieved him, but, when Miss Alathea held her hand out, quietly, for the vessel which had held the final julep but which now held it no longer, he yielded it up gracefully nor asked her to refill it.

As Miss Alathea placed the empty glass upon the side-board Madge entered from the hallway.  She ran up to the Colonel.  “I heard you’d come,” she said, “an’ couldn’t wait.  Say, air it all fixed about Queen Bess?”

“Fixed?” cried the gallant horseman.  “Well I should remark!  Queen Bess is sold and paid for and a draft for the assessment forwarded to the Company.  Inside of a year Frank will have the income of a prince.”

“All,” said Miss Alathea, “owing to that mysterious jockey who disappeared immediately after the race.  Oh, I’d like to kiss that boy!”

“If you did, I should not be jealous,” said the Colonel with an air of generosity.

“Miss ’Lethe, kiss me.  Won’t I do as well?” Madge asked, going to her.

Miss Alathea kissed her, but was still thinking of the unknown jockey, who, in the nick of time, had come from nowhere, materialized from nothing, to save the day for Frank by riding Queen Bess to victory.  “I feel as if I must know his name,” she said.  “Madge, help me persuade the Colonel to tell us.”  She went to him and petted him.  “Colonel, you will not refuse me!”

Madge looked at him apprehensively, warningly.  “An’ I reckon you won’t refuse me, Colonel.”  Then, going close to him, she whispered:  “Remember, mum’s the word!”

“Away, you tempters, away!” the Colonel cried, and waved them from him.  “It’s a professional secret, and I’ve promised to keep it on the honor of a Kentucky gentleman—­just as I promised you, Miss ’Lethe.”

“As you promised me?  That’s enough, Colonel—­not another word!”

Madge nodded, smilingly.  “That’s right, Colonel.  Mustn’t break your word.”  Just then she caught sight of the bundles which the Colonel had had Neb bring in.  “Oh, are them my bundles, Colonel?”

“Every one of them.”

The girl hurried to the mysteriously fascinating packages and began investigation of their contents.  “Thank ye, thank ye!” she exclaimed, while she was busy with the wrappings.  “Awful good of you to bring ’em.”  Then, to Miss Alathea in explanation:  “Things I bought yesterday, Miss ‘Lethe, all by myself.  Jus’ went wild.  Reckon I’ll let you an’ th’ Colonel see ’em.”  She took a large, dressed doll out of its wrappings.  “Look at that!”

“What a beauty!” cried the Colonel.

“Can talk, too.”  Madge pressed the wondrous puppet’s shirred silk chest.  “Ma-ma,” it cried.  “Ma-ma.”

“Never had nothin’ but a rag-doll, myself,” the girl went on, delighted by their approval of this automatic wonder. “’Tain’t for me.  It’s for a little girl as lives up in th’ mountings.”