middle-aged. She had been
travelling in the Far East when the belated news of Margaret's death came
to her. When she had arrived home she announced her intention of taking
care of Margaret's child, just as she had taken care of Margaret. For
several reasons this could not be done in the same way. She was not old
enough to go and live at Normanstand without exciting comment; and the
Squire absolutely refused to allow that his daughter should live anywhere
except in his own house. Educational supervision, exercised at such
distance and so intermittently, could 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 irregularly timed
succession of governesses.

Stephen's affection for her 'Auntie' was never affected by any of the
changes. Others might come and go, but there no change came. The
child's little hand would steal into one of the old lady's strong ones,
or would clasp a finger and hold it tight.