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Ann sat down suddenly in a little huddled heap. Then all at once she remembered her tickets.

“I believe I’ve won something,” she remarked.

“Did you back Nigger?” asked Vera Holmes curiously.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He was the first horse I was ever on. Riding, I mean.”

“Good for you!” said Kent. “He’ll pay a thumping dividend—about sixteen pounds, I should think.”

Ann made a hurried calculation. Twenty times sixteen. Over three hundred pounds! The stakes were fifty. Rodney Marsh would be richer by nearly four hundred pounds! A little fortune, so it seemed to Ann.

“How much did you have on?” asked Vera.

“Twenty pounds,” said Ann.

“Twenty pounds!” shrieked Vera.

“No! No! I mean I suppose I’ll win that,” said Ann. “I had two tickets.”

To her surprise she knew that she was blushing, but that was the excitement.

“More like thirty pounds, if you’ve got two tickets,” said Kent.

“You little plunger!” said Vera.

Ann wanted to rush down to the paddcok to congratulate Rodney, but she couldn’t leave her own party to do that; and after all he wouldn’t miss her congratulations. He had his own friends—any number of them, crowding round him. Mrs. Bentley was down there, shaking him by both hands. Ann saw the handsome, laughing face turned towards the woman from Omoana.