nimal at the disposal of herself and her sisters was
always wanted for something else whenever they asked for it.

The Squire had four hunters--sometimes more--which nobody but himself
ever used, and the price of a horse that would carry a man of his weight
comfortably ran into treble figures more often than not. Dick kept a
couple always at Kencote, even Walter had one, and Humphrey and Frank
could always be mounted whenever they wanted a day with the South
Meadshire. There were nine or ten horses, standing in stalls or loose
boxes or at grass, kept entirely for the amusement of her father and
brothers, besides half a dozen more for the carriages, the station
omnibus, the luggage cart, and all the dynamic demands of a large
household. The boys had all had their ponies as soon as their legs could
grip a saddle. This very pony that she was driving was really Frank's,
having been rescued for him from a butcher's cart in Bathgate fourteen
years before, and nobody knew how old she was. She was used for the
mowing machine and for every sort of little odd job about the garden,
and seemed as if she might go on for ever. It was only when Cicely or
the twins drove her that the reminder was given that she was not as
young as she had been, and must not be hustled.

And she was all they were ever allowed to drive, and then only when she
was not wanted for something else. It was a Clinton tradition, deriving
probably from Colonel Thomas and his six stay-at-home daughters, that
the women of the family did not hunt. They were encouraged to drive and
allowed to ride to the meets of hounds if there was anything to carry
them, and in Cicely's childhood there had been other ponies besides
Kitty, left-offs of her elder brothers, which she had used. But she had
never been given a horse of her own, and the hunters were far too
precious to be galled by a side-saddle. What did she want to ride for?
The Squire hated to see women flying about the country like men, and he
wasn't going to have any more horses in the stable. The men had more
than enough to do as it was. It was part of the whole unfair scheme on
which life at Kencote was based. Everything was done for the men and
boys of the family, and the women and girls must content themselves with
what was left over.

Pondering these and other things, Cicely drove along the country lanes,
between banks and hedges bright with the growth of early summer, through
woods in which pheasants, reared