the kennels and among the horses' heels, and learned to use oaths as
roundly as any Giles or Tom whose work was to wield the curry comb. It
was indeed a curious thing to hear her red baby mouth pour forth curses
and unseemly words as she would at any one who crossed her. Her temper
and hot-headedness carried all before them, and the grooms and stable-
boys found great sport in the language my young lady used in her innocent
furies. But balk her in a whim, and she would pour forth the eloquence
of a fish-wife or a lady of easy virtue in a pot-house quarrel. There
was no human creature near her who had mind or heart enough to see the
awfulness of her condition, or to strive to teach her to check her
passions; and in the midst of these perilous surroundings the little
virago grew handsomer and of finer carriage every hour, as if on the rank
diet that fed her she throve and flourished.

There came a day at last when she had reached six years old, when by a
trick of chance a turn was given to the wheel of her fate.

She had not reached three when a groom first set her on a horse's back
and led her about the stable-yard, and she had so delighted in her
exalted position, and had so shouted for pleasure and clutched her
steed's rein and clucked at him, that her audience had looked on with
roars of laughter. From that time she would be put up every day, and as
time went on showed such unchildish courage and spirit that she furnished
to her servant companions a new pastime. Soon she would not be held on,
but riding astride like a boy, would sit up as straight as a man and
swear at her horse, beating him with her heels and little fists if his
pace did not suit her. She knew no fear, and would have used a whip so
readily that the men did not dare to trust her with one, and knew they
must not mount her on a steed too mettlesome. By the time she passed her
sixth birthday she could ride as well as a grown man, and was as familiar