gone through, though even these might have been worse. Every morning
she rode across the park to the rectory for a couple of hours' tuition
with the rector, whose heart was more in his stable than in his parish,
and whose reputation was greater across country than it was in the
pulpit. His methods were rough and ready, but she had brains, and
acquired an astonishing amount of diverse knowledge. But her education
was stopped with abrupt suddenness when she was fifteen by the arrival
at the rectory of an overgrown young cub who had been sent by a
despairing parent, as a last resource, to the muscular rector, and who
quickly discovered what those amongst whom she had grown up had hardly
realised, that Diana Mayo, with the clothes and manners of a boy, was
really an uncommonly beautiful young woman. With the assurance
belonging to his type, he had taken the earliest opportunity of telling
her so, following it with an attempt to secure the kiss that up to now
his own good looks had always secured for him. But in this case he had
to deal with a girl who was a girl by accident of birth only, who was
quicker with her hands and far finer trained than he was, and whose
natural strength was increased by furious rage. She had blacked his
eyes before he properly understood what was happening, and was dancing
around him like an infuriated young gamecock when the rector had burst
in upon them, attracted by the noise.

What she left he had finished, and then, breathless and angry, had
ridden back across the park with her and had briefly announced to Sir
Aubrey, who happened to be at home upon one of his rare visits, that
his pupil was both too old and too pretty to continue her studies at
the rectory, and had taken himself off as hurriedly as he had come,
leaving Sir Aubrey to settle for himself the new problem of Diana. And,
as before, it was settled in the easiest possible way. Physically she
was perfectly able to take up the role for which he had always intended