Latch came forward with all her savings and volunteered to forego her
wages for a term of years. Old Latch died soon after, some lucky bets set
the squire on his legs again, the matter was half forgotten, and in the
next generation it became the legend of the Latch family. But to Mrs.
Latch it was an incurable grief, and to remove her son from influences
which, in her opinion, had caused his father's death, Mrs. Latch had
always refused Mr. Barfield's offers to do something for William. It was
against her will that he had been taught to ride; but to her great joy he
soon grew out of all possibility of becoming a jockey. She had then placed
him in an office in Brighton; but the young man's height and shape marked
him out for livery, and Mrs. Latch was pained when Mr. Barfield proposed
it. "Why cannot they leave me my son?" she cried; for it seemed to her
that in that hateful cloth, buttons and cockade, he would be no more her
son, and she could not forget what the Latches had been long ago.

"I believe there's going to be a trial this morning," said Margaret;
"Silver Braid was stripped--you noticed that--and Ginger always rides in
the trials."

"I don't know what a trial is," said Esther. "They are not
carriage-horses, are they? They look too slight."

"Carriage-horses, you ninny! Where have you been to all this while--can't
you see that they are race-horses?"

Esther hung down her head and murmured something which Margaret didn't
catch.

"To tell the truth, I didn't know much about them when I came, but then
one never hears anything else here. And that reminds me--it is as much as