championship cup were to be flown that year.

Now Ann the cook had ventured no less than five pounds upon Harmony.
Five pounds represented a half of her annual wage, and a trifle less
than half of her annual savings. Therefore she spent the greater
part of the following afternoon at her window, gazing westward in no
small perturbation of spirit.

It wanted a few minutes to five when a carrier pigeon came travelling
across the zenith, shot downwards suddenly, and alighted on the roof.
Ann climbed to the trap-door and put out a hand. The bird was
preening his feathers, and allowed himself to be taken easily.

In circumstances less agitating Ann had not failed to observe that
the thread about the messenger's wing was not of the kind that Master
Simon used. But her eyes opened wide as they fell on the
handwriting, and still wider as she read:

"_It is all for the best, perhaps. If only people have not begun to
talk_.--Prudence."

A second messenger arrived towards evening with word of Harmony's
success. But the news hardly relaxed Ann's brow, which kept a
pensive contraction even when her master arrived next evening and
poured out her winnings on the table from the silver challenge cup.

She wore this frown at intervals for a fortnight, and all the while
maintained an unusual silence which puzzled Master Simon. Then one
morning he heard her in the kitchen scolding the tap-boy with all her
pristine heartiness. That night, after mulling her master's ale, she