fellow-competitor. She was ushered forth with the second batch of the
rejected, her spirits sank to their former level, and Fanny's
accompanied them.

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.