"Is she so splendid a young creature as they say? Was she in boy's
attire, as we hear her rascal father lets her ride with him?"

"I thought her a boy, and had never seen one like her," said Roxholm,
and he was amazed to feel himself disturbed as if he spoke not of a
child, but of a beauty of ripe years.

"Is she of such height and strength and wondrous development as rumour
tells us?" his Grace continued, still observing him as if with
interest. "At twelve years old, 'tis told, she is tall enough for
eighteen, and can fence and leap hedges and break horses, and that she
plays the tyrant over men four times her age."

"I saw her but once, your Grace," replied Roxholm. "She was tall and
strong and handsome."

"Go and see her again, my lord Marquess," said the Captain-General,
turning to his papers. "But do not wait too long. Such beauties must be
caught early."

When he went back to his quarters, my lord Marquess strolled through
the quaint streets of the town slowly, and looking upon the ground as
he walked. For some reason he felt vaguely depressed, and, searching
within himself for a reason, recognised that the slight cloud resting
upon his spirits recalled to him a feeling of his early childhood--no
other than the sense of restless unhappiness he had felt years ago when
he had first overheard the story of the wretched Lady of Wildairs and
her neglected children.