in childhood--suffer from themselves in a world born with a skin too
many.

To Winton's extreme delight, she took to riding as a duck to water, and
knew no fear on horseback. She had the best governess he could get her,
the daughter of an admiral, and, therefore, in distressed circumstances;
and later on, a tutor for her music, who came twice a week all the
way from London--a sardonic man who cherished for her even more secret
admiration than she for him. In fact, every male thing fell in love
with her at least a little. Unlike most girls, she never had an epoch
of awkward plainness, but grew like a flower, evenly, steadily. Winton
often gazed at her with a sort of intoxication; the turn of her head,
the way those perfectly shaped, wonderfully clear brown eyes would
"fly," the set of her straight, round neck, the very shaping of her
limbs were all such poignant reminders of what he had so loved. And yet,
for all that likeness to her mother, there was a difference, both in
form and character. Gyp had, as it were, an extra touch of "breeding,"
more chiselling in body, more fastidiousness in soul, a little more
poise, a little more sheer grace; in mood, more variance, in mind, more
clarity and, mixed with her sweetness, a distinct spice of scepticism
which her mother had lacked.

In modern times there are no longer "toasts," or she would have been one
with both the hunts. Though delicate in build, she was not frail, and
when her blood was up would "go" all day, and come in so bone-tired that
she would drop on to the tiger skin before the fire, rather than face
the stairs. Life at Mildenham was lonely, save for Winton's hunting
cronies, and they but few, for his spiritual dandyism did not gladly
suffer the average country gentleman and his frigid courtesy frightened
women.