neither be complete nor exact.

Though Stephen was a sweet child she was a wilful one, and very early
in life manifested a dominant nature. This was a secret pleasure to
her father, who, never losing sight of his old idea that she was both
son and daughter, took pleasure as well as pride out of each
manifestation of her imperial will. The keen instinct of childhood,
which reasons in feminine fashion, and is therefore doubly effective
in a woman-child, early grasped the possibilities of her own will.
She learned the measure of her nurse's foot and then of her father's;
and so, knowing where lay the bounds of possibility of the
achievement of her wishes, she at once avoided trouble and learned
how to make the most of the space within the limit of her tether.

It is not those who 'cry for the Moon' who go furthest or get most in
this limited world of ours. Stephen's pretty ways and unfailing good
temper were a perpetual joy to her father; and when he found that as
a rule her desires were reasonable, his wish to yield to them became
a habit.

Miss Rowly seldom saw any individual thing to disapprove of. She it
was who selected the governesses and who interviewed them from time
to time as to the child's progress. Not often was there any
complaint, for the little thing had such a pretty way of showing
affection, and such a manifest sense of justified trust in all whom
she encountered, that it would have been hard to name a specific
fault.

But though all went in tears of affectionate regret, and with
eminently satisfactory emoluments and references, there came an