"Tennis? I hate it; it destroys one's clothes so," says Mrs.
Chichester. "And those shoes, they are terrible. If I knew any
girls--I never do know them, as a rule--I should beg of them not to
play tennis; it is destruction so far as feet go."

"Fancy riding so much as that!" says Mr. Woodleigh, who, with Sir
Maurice and the others, has been listening to Tita's stories of
hunts and rides gone and done. "Why, how _long_ have you been
hunting?"

"Ever since I was thirteen," says Tita.

"Why, that is about your age now, isn't it?" says Gower.

"We lived at Oakdean then," goes on Tita, taking, very properly, no
notice of him, "and my father liked me to ride. My cousin was with
us there, and he taught me. I rode a great deal before"--she pauses,
and her lips quiver; she is evidently thinking of some grief that
has entered into her young life and saddened it--"before I went to
live with my uncle."

"It was your cousin who taught you to ride, then? Is he a son of
the--the uncle with whom you now live?" asks Sir Maurice, who is
rather ashamed of exhibiting such interest in her.

"No, no, indeed! He is a son of my aunt's--my father's sister. She
married a man in Birmingham--a sugar merchant. I did love Uncle
Joe," says Tita warmly.

"No wonder!" says Mrs. Bethune. "I wish _I_ had an uncle a sugar