What sort of father are you! I pictured the lessons, the lack of understanding, the expectation of miracles. No wonder the child had been scared.

He went on: ” There are some people who can never learn to ride.”

Before I could stop myself I had burst out: ” There are some people who cannot teach.”

He stopped to stare at me in astonishment, and I knew that nobody in this house had ever dared to talk to him in such a way.

I thought: This is it. I shall now be told that my services are no longer required, and at the end of the month I may pack my bags and depart.

There was a violent temper there, and I could see that he was fighting to control it. He still looked at me and I could not read the expression in those light eyes. I believed it was contemptuous. Then he glanced back at the stables.

” You must excuse me, Miss Leigh,” he said; and he left me.

I went straight back to Alvean. I found her in the schoolroom. There was the sullen defiant look in her eyes, and I believed she had seen me talking to her father.

I came straight to the point. ” Your father has said I may give you riding lessons, Alvean. Would you like that?”

I saw the muscles of her face tighten, and my heart sank. Would it be possible to teach a child who was as scared as that?

I went on quickly, before she had time to answer : ” When we were your age my sister and I were keen riders. She was two years younger than I and we used to compete together in the local shows. The exciting days in our lives were those when there was a horse show in our village.”

” They have them here,” she said.

” It’s great fun. And once you’ve really mastered the trick you feel quite at home in the saddle.”

She was silent for a moment, then she said : ” I can’t do it. I don’t like horses.”

” You don’t like horses!” My voice was shocked. ” Why, they’re the gentlest creatures in the world.”

” They’re not. They don’t like me. I rode Grey Mare and she ran fast and wouldn’t stop, and if Tapperty hadn’t caught her rein she would have killed me.”

” Grey Mare wasn’t the mount for you. You should have a pony to start with.”

” Then I had Buttercup. She was as bad in a different way. She wouldn’t go when I tried to make her. She took a mouthful of the bushes on the bank and I tugged and tugged and she wouldn’t move for me. When Billy Trehay said Come on, Buttercup,” she just let go and started walking away as though it were all my fault. “

I laughed and she threw me a look of hatred. I hastened to assure her that was the way horses behaved until they under stood you. When they did understand you they loved you as though you were their very dear friend.

I saw the wistful look in her eyes then and I exulted because I knew that the reason for aggressiveness was to be found in her intense loneliness and desire for affection.

I said: ” Look here, Alvean, come out with me now. Let’s see what we can do together.”

She shook her head and looked at me suspiciously. I knew she felt that I might be trying to punish her for her ungraciousness towards me by making her look foolish. I wanted to put my arm about her, but I knew that was no way to approach Alvean.

” There’s one thing to learn before you can begin to ride,” I said as though I had not noticed her gesture, ” and that is to love your horse. Then you won’t be afraid. As soon as you’re not afraid, your horse will begin to love you. He’ll know you’re his master, and he wants a master; but it must be a tender, loving master.”

She was giving me her attention now.

” When a horse runs away as Grey Mare did, that means that she is frightened. She’s as frightened as you are, and her way of showing it is to run. Now when you’re frightened you should never let her know it. You just whisper to her, it’s all right. Grey Mare … I’m here.” As for Buttercup she’s a mischievous old nag. She’s lazy and she knows that you can’t handle her, so she won’t do as she’s told.

But once you let her know you’re the master she’ll obey. Look how she did with Billy Trehay! “

” I didn’t know Grey Mare was frightened of me,” she said.

” Your father wants you to ride,” I told her.

It was the wrong thing to have said; it reminded her of past fears, past humiliations; I saw the stubborn fear return to her eyes, and felt a new burst of resentment towards that arrogant man who could be so careless of the feelings of a child.

” Wouldn’t it be fun,” I said, ” to surprise him. I mean … suppose you learned and you could jump and gallop, and he didn’t know about it until he saw you do it.”

It hurt me to see the joy in her face and I wondered how any man could be so callous as to deny a child the affection she asked.

” Alvean,” I said. ” Let’s try.”

” Yes,” she said, ” let’s try. I’ll go and change into my things.”

I gave a little cry of disappointment, remembering that I had no riding habit with me. During my years with Aunt Adelaide I had had little opportunity for wearing it. Aunt Adelaide was no horsewoman herself and consequently was never invited to the country to hunt.

Thus I had no opportunity for riding. To ride in Rotten Row would have been far beyond my means. When I had last looked at my riding clothes I had seen that the moth had got at them. I had felt resigned. I believed that I should never need them again.

Alvean was looking at me and I told her: ” I have no riding clothes.”

Her face fell and then lit up. ” Come with me,” she said. She was almost conspiratorial and I enjoyed this new relation ship between us which I felt to be a great advance towards friendship.

We went along the gallery until we were in that part of the house which Mrs. Polgrey had told me was not for me. Alvean paused before a door and I had the impression that she was steeling herself to go in.

She at length threw open the door and stood aside for me to enter, and I could not help feeling that she wanted me to go in first.

It was a small room which I judged to be a dressing room. In it was a long mirror, a tallboy, a chest of drawers and an oak chest. Like most of the rooms in the house this room had j two doors. These rooms in the gallery appeared to lead from one to another, and this other door was slightly opened and, as Alvean went to it and looked round the room beyond, I followed her.

It was a bedroom in there. A large room beautifully furnished, the floor carpeted in blue, the curtains of blue velvet; the bed was a fourposter and, although I knew it to be large, it was dwarfed by the size of the room.

Alvean seemed distressed to see my interest in the bedroom. She went to the communicating door and shut it.

” There are lots of clothes here,” she said. ” In the chests and the tallboy. There’s bound to be riding clothes. There’ll be something you can have.”

She had thrown up the lid of the chest and it was something new for me to see her so excited. I was delighted to have discovered a way to her affections that I allowed myself to be carried along.

In the chest were dresses, petticoats, hats and boots.

Alvean said quickly: ” There are a lot of clothes in the attics. Great trunks of them. They were grand mamma and great grand mamma When there were parties they used to dress up in them and play charades ” I held up a lady’s black beaver hat obviously meant to be worn for riding. I put it on my head and Alvean laughed with a little catch in her voice. That laughter moved me more than anything had done since I had entered this house. It was the laughter of a child who is unaccustomed to laughter and laughs in a manner which is almost guilty. I determined to have her laughing often and without the slightest feeling of guilt.

She suddenly controlled herself as though she remembered where she was.

” You look so funny in it. Miss,” she said.

I got up and stood before the long mirror. I certainly looked unlike myself. My eyes were brilliant, my hair looked quite copper against the black. I decided that I looked slightly less unattractive than usual, and that was what Alvean meant by ” funny.”

” Not in the least like a governess,” she explained. She was pulling out a dress, and I saw that it was a riding habit made of black woollen cloth and trimmed with braid and ball fringe. It had a blue collar and blue cuffs and it was elegantly cut.

I held it up against myself. ” I think,” I said, ” that this would fit.”

” Try it on,” said Alvean. Then . ” No, not here. You take it to your room and put it on.” She suddenly seemed obsessed by the desire to get out of this room. She picked up the hat and ran to the door. I thought that she was eager for us to get started on our lesson, and there was not a great deal of time if we were to be back for tea at four.

I picked up the dress, took the hat from her and went back to my room.

She hurried through to hers, and I immediately put on the riding habit.

It was not a perfect fit, but I had never been used to expensive clothes and was prepared to forget it was a little tight at the waist, and that the sleeves were on the short side, for a new woman looked back at me from my mirror, and when I set the beaver hat on my head I was delighted with myself.

I ran along to Alvean’s room; she was in her habit, and when she saw me her eyes lit up and she seemed to look at me with greater interest than ever before.

We went down to the stables and I told Billy Trehay to saddle Buttercup for Alvean and another horse for myself as we were going to have a riding lesson.

He looked at me with some astonishment, but I told him that we had little time and were impatient to begin.