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 42 Master noticed the change too, and one day when he got out of the carriage and came to speak to us as he often did, he stroked her beautiful neck, "Well, my pretty one, well, how do things go with you now? you are a good bit happier than when you came to us, I think."

She put her nose up to him in a friendly trustful way, while he rubbed it gently.

"We shall make a cure of her, John," he said.

"Yes, sir, she's wonderfully improved, she's not the same creature that she was; it's the Birtwick balls, sir," said John, laughing.

This was a little joke of John's; he used to say that a regular course of the Birtwick horse-balls would cure almost any vicious horse; these balls he said were made up of patience and gentleness, firmness and petting, one pound of each to be mixed up with half-a-pint of common sense, and given to the horse every day.