l of hell-fire as he."

Upon this morning which proved eventful to her, she had gone to the
stables, as was her daily custom, and going into the stall where the big
black horse was wont to stand, she found it empty. Her spirit rose hot
within her in the moment. She clenched her fists, and began to stamp and
swear in such a manner as it would be scarce fitting to record.

"Where is he now?" she cried. "He is my own horse, and shall not be
ridden. Who is the man who takes him? Who? Who?"

"'Tis a fellow who hath no manners," said the man she stormed at,
grinning and thrusting his tongue in his cheek. "He says 'tis his beast,
and not yours, and he will have him when he chooses."

"'Tis not his--'tis mine!" shrieked Miss, her little face inflamed with
passion. "I will kill him! 'Tis my horse. He _shall_ be mine!"

For a while the men tormented her, to hear her rave and see her passion,
for, in truth, the greater tempest she was in, the better she was worth
beholding, having a colour so rich, and eyes so great and black and
flaming. At such times there was naught of the feminine in her, and
indeed always she looked more like a handsome boy than a girl, her growth
being for her age extraordinary. At length a lad who was a helper said
to mock her--

"The man hath him at the door before the great steps now. I saw him
stand there waiting but a moment ago. The man hath gone in the house."

She turned and ran to find him. The front part of the house she barely
knew the outside of, as she was kept safely in the west wing and below
stairs, and when taken out for the air was always led privately by a side
way--never passing through the great hall, where her father might chance
to encounter her.

She knew best this side-entrance, and made her way to it, meaning to
search until she found the front. She got into the house, and her spirit
being roused, marched boldly through corridors and into rooms she had
never seen before, and being so mere a child, notwithstanding her strange
wilfulness and daring, the novelty of the things she saw so far
distracted her mind from the cause of her anger that she stopped more
than once to stare up at a portrait on a wall, or to take in her hand
something she was curious concerning.

When she at last reached the entrance-hall, coming into it through a door
she pushed open, using all her childish strength, she stood in the midst
of it and gazed about her with a new curiosity and