Aladdin of London, or The Lodestar

Anna did not reply immediately to this odd harangue. She knew a good deal about horses, but nothing whatever about the knavery of betting, the shoddy tricks of it and the despicable spirit in which this great game is often played. Something of her father's cunning, inherited and ineradicable, led her to condone the Captain's sporting creed and not to seek understanding. The man's high spirits made a sure appeal to her. She could not comprehend it wholly--but she had to admit that none of all her father's widening circle had ever appealed to her as this nimble-tongued adventurer, who could make her heart quicken every time their hands touched.

"I don't like it," she said anon, "and I don't want anything to do with it. You make Whirlwind win the race and nobody will be hurt. If they bet against the horse, what is that to me? How can I help what they think--and I don't care either if they are so foolish. Didn't you promise me that I should see him gallop this morning? I wouldn't have motored over otherwise. You said that there was to be a Trial--"

"Divine angel, we are at your feet always. Of course, there's a Trial. Am I so foolish as to suppose that you came over to see Willy Forrest--eh, what? Have I lost the funny-bone up above? Farrier is going to gallop the nags in half an hour's time. Your smoke-machine can take us up the hill and there we'll form our own conclusions. You leave the rest to me. It will be a bright sunny morning when they put any salt on Willy Forrest's tail--eh, what?"

She admitted the truth with the first smile he had seen since she entered the cottage. His quick bustling manner, the deference he always paid to her, despite his odd phrases, won upon her good humor and led her to open her heart to him.

"My father is going mad," she said quietly--his startled "eh, what" not preventing her; "we are making our house a home for the destitute, and the first arrived just three weeks ago. Imagine a flaxen-haired image of righteousness, who draws my portrait on the covers of books and puts feathers in my hat. He is in love with me, Willy, and he is to be my big brother. Yesterday I took him to Ranalegh and heard a discourse upon the beauties of nature and the wonders of the air and the sky. Oh, my dear man--what a purgatory and what an event. We are going to sell our jewels presently and to live in Whitechapel. My father, I must tell you, seems afraid of this beautiful apparition and implores him every day not to go away. I know that he stops because he is inclined to make love to me.