Never before had the starved soul of him--fed, all his life, when it was fed at all, from the drippings of the flesh-pots and the "leavings" of the City--found any savour in the insipid offerings of the Country; never before had he known what charms lie on a river's breast, what spells of magic a blossoming hedge and the white "candles" of a horse-chestnut tree may weave, and never before had a meadow been anything to him but a simple grass-grown field.

To-day Nature--through this man who was so essentially bred in the very womb of her--spoke to his understanding and found her words not lost on air.

The dormant things within the boy had awakened.

Life spoke; Hope sang; and between them all the world was changed.

Yesterday, he had looked upon this day of idling in the country as a pleasant interlude, as a happy prologue to those greater delights that would come when he at last went to Epsom and really saw the famous race for the Derby.