Perhaps the most trying feature of the affair was the reproving sympathy of her friends, a sympathy that was apt to break down into almost irrepressible laughter at the sight of the broken-down skeleton of whose prowess poor Fanny Fitz had so incautiously boasted.

“Y’ know, my dear child,” said one elderly M.F.H., “you had no business to send up an animal without the condition of a wire fence to the Dublin Show.  Look at my horses!  Fat as butter, every one of ’em!”

“So was mine, but it all melted away in the train,” protested Fanny Fitz in vain.  Those of her friends who had only seen the mare in the catalogue sent dealers to buy her, and those who had seen her in the flesh—­or what was left of it—­sent amateurs; but all, dealers and the greenest of amateurs alike, entirely declined to think of buying her.

The weather was perfect; every one declared there never was a better show, and Fanny Fitz, in her newest and least-paid-for clothes, looked brilliantly successful, and declared to Mr. Rupert Gunning that nothing made a show so interesting as having something up for it.  She even encouraged him to his accustomed jibes at her Connemara speculation, and personally conducted him to stall No. 548, and made merry over its melancholy occupant in a way that scandalised Patsey, and convinced Mrs. Spicer that Fanny’s pocket was even harder hit than she had feared.

On the second day, however, things looked a little more hopeful.

“She ate her grub last night and this morning middlin’ well, miss,” said Patsey, “and”—­here he looked round stealthily and began to whisper—­“when I had her in the ring, exercisin’, this morning, there was one that called me in to the rails; like a dealer he was.  ’Hi! grey mare!’ says he.  I went in.  ‘What’s your price?’ says he.  ’Sixty guineas, sir,’ says I.  ‘Begin at the shillings and leave out the pounds!’ says he.  He went away then, but I think he’s not done with me.”

“I’m sure the ring is our best chance, Patsey,” said Fanny, her voice thrilling with the ardour of conspiracy and of reawakened hope.  “She doesn’t look so thin when she’s moving.  I’ll go and stand by the rails, and I’ll call you in now and then just to make people look at her!”

“Sure I had Masther Freddy doing that to me yestherday,” said Patsey; but hope dies hard in an Irishman, and he saddled up with all speed.

For two long burning hours did the Connemara filly circle in Ring 3, and during all that time not once did her owner’s ears hear the longed-for summons, “Hi! grey mare!” It seemed to her that every other horse in the ring was called in to the rails, “and she doesn’t look so very thin to-day!” said Fanny indignantly to Captain Spicer, who, with Mr. Gunning, had come to take her away for lunch.

“Oh, you’ll see, you’ll sell her on the last day; she’s getting fitter every minute,” responded Captain Spicer.  “What would you take for her?”