But she had run to the big beast's head with another shout, and caught
him round his foreleg, laughing, and Rake bent his head down and nosed
her in a fumbling caress, on which, the bridle coming within her reach,
she seized it and held his head that she might pat him, to which
familiarity the beast was plainly well accustomed.

"He is my horse," quoth she grandly when her father reached her. "He
will not let Giles play so."

Sir Jeoffry gazed and swelled with pleasure in her.

"Would have said 'twas a lie if I had not seen it," he said to himself.
"'Tis no girl this, I swear. I thought 'twas my horse," he said to her,
"but 'tis plain enough he is thine."

"Put me up!" said his new-found offspring.

"Hast rid him before?" Sir Jeoffry asked, with some lingering misgiving.
"Tell thy Dad if thou hast rid him."

She gave him a look askance under her long fringed lids--a surly yet half-
slyly relenting look, because she wanted to get her way of him, and had
the cunning wit and shrewdness of a child witch.

"Ay!" quoth she. "Put me up--Dad!"

He was not a man of quick mind, his brain having been too many years
bemuddled with drink, but he had a rough instinct which showed him all
the wondrous shrewdness of her casting that last word at him to wheedle
him, even though she looked sullen in the saying it. It made him roar