almost maenad temper in the child. She was seven, and long and white and
thin, but by no means subdued. Her blonde hair was darkening. She still
had long sufferings to face, and, in her own childish consciousness, the
stigma of her lameness to bear.

And she bore it. An almost maenad courage seemed to possess her, as if
she were a long, thin, young weapon of life. She acknowledged all her
mother's care. She would stand by her mother for ever. But some of her
father's fine-tempered desperation flashed in her.

When Egbert saw his little girl limping horribly--not only limping but
lurching horribly in crippled, childish way, his heart again hardened
with chagrin, like steel that is tempered again. There was a tacit
understanding between him and his little girl: not what we would call
love, but a weapon-like kinship. There was a tiny touch of irony in his
manner towards her, contrasting sharply with Winifred's heavy, unleavened
solicitude and care. The child flickered back to him with an answering
little smile of irony and recklessness: an odd flippancy which made
Winifred only the more sombre and earnest.

The Marshalls took endless thought and trouble for the child, searching
out every means to save her limb and her active freedom. They spared no
effort and no money, they spared no strength of will. With all their
slow, heavy power of will they willed that Joyce should save her liberty
of movement, should win back her wild, free grace. Even if it took a long
time to recover, it should be recovered.

So the situation stood. And Joyce submitted, week after week, month after
month to the tyranny and pain of the treatment. She acknowledged the
honourable effort on her behalf. But her flamy reckless spirit was her