“I don’t think she’s breaking her heart, wherever she is!” he murmured. “I’ve seen her but once since that night, that awful night! I hope she enjoyed my letter of dismissal. I wonder where she is?”
He tore the last envelope to pieces and stuffed the picture into his coat-pocket, little dreaming how much harm it might bring him.
About a mile outside of the city stood a blacksmith’s shop, and near by its owner’s hut. Under a large tree, in front of the door, sat the man and his wife, enjoying the coolness denied to those who dwelt in mansions in the city. The woman held a bundle on her lap, examining its contents by the faint light which came through the open door.
“Do you think they’ll fit?” asked she.
“I told the girl to do her best, bein’ as how we couldn’t find the lad at the right time. She had t’other pants to go by,” said Peleg, shortly. “You can’t expect a chap to keer much how his jockey’s clothes fits so they hangs all right.”
“Well!” sighed the woman, “I only hopes and prays as they won’t turn out to be his burial clothes, as you tells me it’s a mighty bad horse he is goin’ to ride.”
“It is a pretty bad ’un for them as don’t know nothin’ about horses; but I guess this chap is all right. You know, Mandy, some has a way wid a critter as you can hardly account for.”
“Yes, so they has, so they has!” and she grew silent, as her thoughts went back through many years.