ensemble. They were of all types, city and country both, and of the
Southern dark as well as the Northern fair complexion, with so thick
a sprinkling of South Americans that the Spanish gutturals made
themselves almost as much heard as the Yankee nasals. Among them
moved two nuns of some mendicant order, receiving charity from the
fair gamblers, who gave for luck without distinction of race or
religion.

I leaned forward and called Kendricks's attention to the nuns, and
to the admirable literary quality of the whole situation. He was
talking to Miss Gage, and he said as impatiently as he ever suffered
himself to speak, "Yes, yes; tremendously picturesque."

"You ought to get something out of it, my dear fellow. Don't you
feel copy in it?"

"Oh, splendid, of course; but it's your ground, Mr. March. I
shouldn't feel it right to do anything with Saratoga after you had
discovered it," and he turned eagerly again to Miss Gage.

My wife put her hand on my sleeve and frowned, and I had so far lost
myself in my appreciation of the scene that I was going to ask her
what the matter was, when a general sensation about me made me look
at the track, where the horses for the first race had already
appeared, with their jockeys in vivid silk jackets of various dyes.
They began to form for the start with the usual tricks and feints,
till I became very indignant with them, though I had no bets
pending, and did not care in the least which horse won. What I
wanted was to see the race, the flight, and all this miserable
manoeuvring was retarding it. Now and then a jockey rode his horse