fresh, perhaps not at all meant to
hurt her, would again hurt her horribly. In reality, the whole household
loved and admired her. But she was one of those delicate-treading beings,
born with a skin too few, who--and especially 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.

Besides, as Betty had foreseen, tongues did wag--those tongues of the
countryside, avid of anything that might spice the tedium of dull lives
and brains. And, though no breath of gossip came to Winton's ears, no
women visited at Mildenham. Save for the friendly casual
acquaintanceships of churchyard, hunting-field, and local race-meetings,
Gyp grew up knowing hardly any of her own sex. This dearth developed her
reserve