brought up half boy by her
father and his cronies, and is already the strappingest beauty in
England."

"He is too great a gentleman to have heard of such an ill-mannered
young hoyden," said Tantillion, "but we will tell him. 'Twas my sister
Betty's letter--writ from Warwickshire--set us on," and he pulled forth
a scrawled girlish-looking epistle from his pocket and spread it on the
table. "Shalt hear it, Roxholm? Bet is a minx, and 'tis plain she is
green with jealousy of the other girl--but 'tis the best joke I have
heard for many a day."

And forthwith Roxholm must sit down and hear the letter read and listen
to their comments thereupon, and their shouts of boyish laughter.

Little Lady Betty Tantillion, who was an embryo coquette of thirteen,
had been to visit her relations in Warwickshire, and during her stay
among them had found the chief topic of conversation a certain mad
creature over the borders of Gloucestershire--a Mistress Clorinda
Wildairs, who was the scandal of the county, and plainly the delight of
all the tongue-waggers.

"And oh, Tom, she is a grate thing, almost as tall as a woman though
she is but twelve years of age," wrote her young Ladyship, whose
spelling, by the way, was by no means as correct as her sense of the
proprieties. "Her father, Sir Jeoffry, allows her to ride in boys'
clothes, which is indecent for a young lady even at her time of life.
Brother Tom, how would you like to see your sister Betty astride a
hunter, in breeches? Lady Maddon (she is the slender, graceful buty who
is called the 'Willow Wand' by the gentlemen who are her servants)--she
saith that this girl is a coarse thing and has so little modisty that
she is proud to show her legs, thinking men will admire them, but she
is mistaken, for gentlemen like a modist woman who is slight and
delicate. She (Mistress Clo--as they call her) has big, bold, black
eyes and holds her chin in the air and her mouth looks as red as if
'twere painted every hour. Every genteel woman speaks ill of her and is
ashamed of her bold ways. And she is not even handsome, Tom, for all
their talk, for I have seen her myself and _think nothing of her
looks_. Her breeding is said to be shameful and her langwidge a
disgrace to her secks. The gentlemen are always telling tales of her
ways, and they laugh and make such a noise when they talk about her
over their wine. At our Aunt Flixton's one day, my cousin Gill and me
stood behind a tree to hear what