he loved her grand-dad more; or it may be that the simplicity of
the chapel, the austerity of the service, and the character of the
congregation, all of a kind, close to earth, humble of heart, and russet
in hue, attending there for no other reason than because they loved it,
appealed to something profound and ineradicable in the spirit of this
child bred amongst the austere and simple hills to which she knew
herself so close.

Old Mat was fond of saying that the girl's mother could do what she
liked with her, and nobody else could do anything at all.

"I don't try," he would add, "She puts the terror on to me, that gal
do."

And the old man was right.

Different as they were, there was a deep and mysterious sympathy between
mother and daughter. And on that sympathy the mother's power was based.

Only once was her authority, based as it was upon the spirit, subject to
breaking strain.

When the girl was fourteen, Mrs. Woodburn decided to send her to the
High School at Lewes. Old Mat shook his head; Mrs. Haggard was
delighted; the girl herself went about with pursed lips and frozen air.

The vicar, meeting her in the village, stopped her.

"What d'you think about it, Boy?" he asked in his grave, kind way.

"I shall go," blurted the girl. "But I shall win all the same."

"Win what?" asked the vicar.

"_That_," said Boy, and flashed on her way.

When the day of parting came, word was sent round to the stables that
nobody was to be in them at twelve o'clock. At that hour a slight cold
figure crossed the yard swiftly, and entered the stables. The key was
turned in the door. There was no sound from within, except the movement
of the horses, to whom the girl was bidding good-bye.

Half an hour later the door was opened, and she came out, cold and
frosty as she had entered.

Monkey Brand, standing in the door of the saddle-room, keeping guard
over the stable-lads lest they should peep and pry, saw her come.

"She look very grim," he afterward reported to Old Mat.

"Keeps a stiff lip for a little 'un," whispered a lad peeping from
behind the jockey's shoulder.

Monkey Brand rounded on him.

"If you'd 'alf her 'eart," he said, "you might be mistook for a man."

For three weeks thereafter Putnam's knew the girl no more; and it seemed
that the soul had died out of the place. Monkey Brand moped, and swore
the horses moped, too.

"When I goes round my 'orses in the mornin' they look at me like so many
bull-ox