slowly back to the paddock from which barely three hours before the
splendid mare, now lying lifeless in the pasture, had dashed, leaving a
trail of her life's blood behind her to guide those who came too late.
It was all the outcome of one person's disregard of orders: One of the
hands had quit his work to gossip, leaving his great hedge shears
hanging carelessly across the gate, and the gate unfastened. The
Empress, gamboling with her foal, had rushed upon them, cut herself
cruelly, then maddened by the pain and terrified by the flowing blood,
had dashed away as only a frightened horse can, running until she fell
from exhaustion.

Peggy went back to the inclosure in which the Empress, as the most
honored of the brood mares, had lived with her foal. The little stable,
a very model of order and appointment, stood at one end of it. She
opened the gate, intending to leave the colt in the inclosure, but he
huddled closer and closer to her side.

"Why Roy, baby, what is it!" asked Peggy, as she would have spoken to a
child. The little thing could only press closer and nicker its baby
nicker. Peggy hesitated a moment, then said: "It will never do to leave
you now. You are half starved, you poor little thing. Eight weeks are
NOT many to have lived. Come." And as though he understood every word
and was comforted, the baby horse nickered again and walked close by her
side. She went straight to the house, circling the garden, rich in early
spring blossoms, to enter a little inclosure around which the servants'
quarters were built, one building, a trifle more pretentious than the
rest, evidently that of some upper servant. As Peggy and her four-footed
companion drew near, a trim little old colored woman looked out of the
door. She was immaculate in a black and white checked gingham, a large
white apron and a white turban, suggestive of ante-bellum days.