s was the same though one had lived beyond sixty years and one but twenty four a female his grace of creature of such beauty of such temper bred in such manner among such companions by such parents � what fate could be before her averted his eyes tossed to the wolves he said tossed to the pack � to harry and to over god s mercy as they rode he heard the story lord having related such incidents as he naturally knew to my lord twas a bitter history to whose the late lady had been and who was a sober and god fearing gentleman to whom irregular habits and the reckless of fortune were things and this was the substance of the relation which was so far out of the common as to be almost monstrous his disgust at the birth of this ninth girl infant had so sir that he had refused even to behold it and had left it to its fate as if it had been an ill made blind but two of her s other children had survived their infancy and of these two their father knew nothing whatever but that they had been called and anne that they showed no promise of beauty and lived their bare little lives in the otherwise deserted west wing having as their sole companion and a certain mistress � a poor his grace of tion who had taken the position in the wretched household to save herself from starvation and because she was fitted for no other her education being so poor and her understanding so limited that no or careful family would have accepted her as or companion her two poor little charges learned the few things she could teach them and their meek gave her but little trouble their dead mother s suffering and their father s rough contempt on the rare occasions when he had chanced to behold them had them to from their there was none who wanted them none who served or noticed them and there was no circumstance which could not restrain them no person who was not their ruler if twas his will but the ninth one was not like them said my lord the blood of the fierce devils who were the chiefs of her house centuries ago woke in her veins at her birth tis strange indeed how such things break forth � or slumber � in a race should you trace as you trace through the past her nature would be made clear enough they have been splendid devils some of them � devils who fought shrieking with ferocious laughter in the face of certain horrible death devils whose spirit no torture of rack or flame could conquer his grace of beings who could endure in silence horrors almost supernatural who could bear more more suffer more defy more than any other human thing and this child is one of them said he said but little as they rode onward and he listened there was within him a certain for what seemed to him the unnatural tumult of his feelings a girl child of twelve in boys clothes was not a pleasing picture but in one sense a tragic one and certainly not such as should set a man s heart beating and his cheek to flame when he heard stories of her fantastic life and character on this occasion he did not understand himself if he had been a he would have his own seeming levity but he was not so and frankly felt himself restless and ill at ease the name given to her had been and from her she had been as as her sisters were mild none could manage her her baby training left wholly to neglected and loose living servants she had spent her first years in and stables the stables and the stable boys the and their were loved better than aught else she learned to the language of and she cursed and swore as they did she heard his grace of their songs and stories and was as familiar with and language as other children are with until she was five years old sir never set eyes upon her then a strange chance threw her in his way and sealed her fate through the house having escaped from her woman the child had reached the big hall and upon the floor playing with a powder she had found twas sir s and he coming upon her not knowing her for his own offspring not that such a knowledge would have his passion he sprang upon her with curses and soundly her either of her sisters anne or would have been with terror but this one was only roused to a fury as much greater for her size than sir was bigger than herself she flew at him and poured forth oaths she shrieked at him and beat his legs with his own crop which she caught up from the floor where it lay within reach she tore at him with tooth and nail and with such strength and infant as arrested him in his frenzy and caused him to burst forth laughing as if he had gone mad from that hour she was a doomed creature my lord ended what else can a man call the poor helpless thing she is his companion and and the toy and jest of his his grace of comrades it is the scandal of the county at twelve she is as near a woman as other girls of fourteen at fifteen � and he stopped speaking have been safer for her to have died beneath her dead mother s body said almost fiercely yes safer said his � yet what a woman � what a woman � and here he broke off speech again chapter in which my lady writes of a scandal scarce two years later king william riding in the park at 