A tall, top-hatted figure, enfolded in long, shaggy gray frieze coat, came up the paved yard toward them between clouds of arabis.

Silver had changed in the train on the way down.  He was booted, spurred, and above all radiant.

Mrs. Woodburn went out on to the steps to meet him.  The girl hid her hair behind her mother’s stately figure.

“So you’ve managed it!” smiled Mrs. Woodburn.

“I was determined not to miss it,” replied the young man, striding up the steps stiff in his top-boots.  “Miss Woodburn, congratulations.”

“Who told you?” cried Boy, taken aback.

“Billy Bluff, of course,” replied the other.  “Caddish of him, wasn’t it?”

They went into the parlour.

Mrs. Woodburn did not offer the traveller a drink for the simple reason that it never occurred to her to do so.

“By Jove!  I am late!” cried the young man, glancing at the clock.  “There was a break-down at Hayward’s Heath.”

He stripped off his ulster, and stood up in his pink coat, his baggy white breeches, and top-boots.

In Boy Woodburn’s judgment most men, so attired, looked supremely ridiculous.  It was not so with Mr. Silver.  It may be that his absolute lack of self-consciousness distracted attention from his costume.  It may be that he was so real himself that he dominated his artificial habiliments.  Certainly his strong, clean face, his short, crisp hair, and pleasant, booming voice possessed and pleased the girl.

“You’d better be off, or you’ll have the Duke down on you,” said Mrs. Woodburn.

“Dad’s gone an hour since,” said Boy.

She led the way swiftly down long stone passages out into the yard.  He followed, his eyes on that shining bunch of hair before him.

The yard looked deserted.  The fan-tails strutted vaingloriously; Maudie lay in the sun on the stable wall; and Billy Bluff’s kennel was empty.

“Hullo, where’s Bill?” cried the young man.

“Some idiot’s let him off his chain,” grumbled the girl.  “Just like them.  A hunting morning.”

A great gray horse, led by little Jerry, was feeling his way through the stable-door.  Banjo stood seventeen hands or over, but he was all quality.  His long neck was hog-maned; and his Roman nose and sober colour gave him an air of wisdom and experience which a somewhat frivolous character belied.

Young Lollypop, a brown three-year-old, followed demurely behind.  For all his sixteen hands, he looked a mere stripling beside the gray; but he was far too tall for the girl to mount without assistance.  Stanley went for a bucket, but before he could return Silver had shot the girl into the saddle, and stood a moment looking up at her with eyes in which laughter and admiration mingled.

The girl seemed so slight and yet so masterful on these great larruping thoroughbreds she always rode!

Young Lollypop had the callow and awkward ways of a young giraffe, but, though only a three-year-old, he was sedate as an old maid and had the dignity of a churchwarden.  His behaviour was an example to his flippant colleague.