oud tones were hardly suitable to
an invalid. Suffering as she was from a painful and incurable
complaint, it was sometimes impossible for her to admit Honor to her
sick-room, and for weeks together the girl would hardly see her mother.
It was through no lack of love that Honor had failed to give that
service and tenderness which, in the circumstances, an only daughter
might so fitly have rendered; it was from sheer want of thought, and
general heedlessness. Some girls early acquire a sense of
responsibility and care for others, but in Honor these qualities were
as undeveloped as in a child of six.

Many were the governesses who had attempted to tame the young rebel,
and bring her into a state of law and order, but all had been equal
failures. She had learnt lessons when she felt inclined, and left them
undone when she was idle; and she had managed to make life in the
schoolroom such a purgatory that it had been difficult to persuade any
teacher to stay long at the Castle, and cope with so thankless a task
as her education.

It had been of little use to complain to her father, the only person in
the world whose authority she recognized; he was proud of his handsome
daughter, and, except when her temper crossed his own, was apt to
indulge her in most of her whims. Matters had at last, however, come to
a crisis. An act of more than usual assumption on Honor's part had
aroused Major Fitzgerald's utmost indignation, and had caused him
suddenly to decide that she was spoiling at home, and that the only
possible solution of the difficulty was to dispatch her to school as
soon as the necessary arrangements could be made for her departure.

The incident that led to this resolution was very characteristic of
Honor's headstrong, impulsive nature. She was passionately fond of
horses, and for some time had been anxious to possess a new pony. It
was not that she loved Pixie, her former favourite, any the less; but
he was growing old, and was now scarcely able to take a fence, or carry
her in mad career over the moors, being only fit for a sober trot on
the high road, or to draw her mother's Bath chair round the garden. To
obtain a strong, well-bred, fiery substitute for Pixie was the summit
of Honor's ambition. One day, when she was with her father at
Ballycroghan, she saw exactly the realization of her ideal. It was a
small black cob, which showed a trace of Arab blood in its arching
neck, slender limbs, and easy, springy motion