At the mention of the name of Grannan the mistress leaned over and listened. She had long been sitting motionless, stolid, oblivious to everything save her thoughts. Some one touched her upon the arm, and turning sharply, with a startled look in her face, she beheld the outstretched hand of Thomas, holding a batch of tickets.
“The trainer said, ma’am, to tell you that he just could not help it, ma’am; when he saw twenty to one posted against Cassandra’s chances, he made the ‘pencilers’ rub it off, and here, ma’am are the tickets. Mr. Grannan, he said, had placed a large sum on the Empress,” continued Thomas, “and that he took the liberty to purchase pools on Cassandra at the tempting odds.”
She clutched the tickets nervously in her hand and quickly thrust them into her purse, trembling visibly as she did so.
“Ah,” said Colonel Townsend, “we were speaking of Grannan. There is his mare now—Empress—out for the handicap. I think, though,” he continued, “that Helen Orland—Briggs’ mare—is going to have decidedly the best of it in the going to-day.”
“Well,” said the Major, “I like Rosalind or Houston’s entry—Geraldine.”
“What’s the matter with Annabel?” chimed in the stranger. “There she is now. She certainly looks a winner, and the distance just suits her.”
A wild cheer now suddenly burst from the crowd as Helen Orland passed in front of the judges’ stand. She was evidently a favorite with the spectators, for the cheer was repeated.
“Ho! ho!” shouted the Major. “She is going to start. There comes the ‘little ghost.’”
And simultaneously with his words, a bevy of swipes and stable boys set up a yell.
“Mother of Moses!” ejaculated the stranger. “Major, but you were right. She is a dream.”