and how to make an
introduction, how to walk, how to sit, how to rise. Allie did sums in
arithmetic, she studied grammar and geography and penmanship--in short,
she took an intensified common-school course. Here was where her
tutoress had trouble, for when the girl's brain became weary or
confused she relieved her baffled rage in her most natural way, the
while Mrs. Ring stopped her ears and moaned. It was a regimen that no
ordinary woman could have endured; it would have taxed the strength of
an athlete.

Late in the afternoon Allie went riding, and here was one
accomplishment in which she required no coaching. Frequently she vented
her spite upon her horse, and more than once she brought it home with
its mouth bleeding and its flanks white with lather. She rode with a
magnificent recklessness that finally caused comment among the other
guests.

Allie was sitting alone in her room one evening, fagged out from a hard
day. Some people were talking on the veranda outside her window, and
she heard one say:

"The girl can look really stunning."

"Exactly. I don't understand where she gets her looks, for her parents
are--impossible. Wouldn't you _know_ what they were?"

Allie needed no clearer indication of who was under discussion.
Instinctive resentment at the reference to her father and mother was
followed by amazement, delight, at the compliment to herself--the first
she had ever received. She leaned forward, straining to hear more. What
mattered it how these contemptuous outsiders referred to her parents?
They agreed that she was "stunning," which was their way of saying that
she was pretty, nay, more--beautiful, perhaps.

"She's a glorious rider," the first speaker was saying. "She passed me
the other day, going like sin, with her face blazing and that big,
lively chestnut running flat. The way she took that curve above the
Devil's Slide brought my heart into my mouth."

The breathless eavesdropper felt a hot wave of delight pour over her,
her very flesh seemed to ripple like the fur of a cat when it is
stroked.

"Oh, she's a picture, mounted! Seems to have complete confidence in
herself; and the strength of a giantess, too. But--my God! when she's
on her feet! And have you heard her talk?" Evidently the other speaker
had, for there came the sound of low laughter, a sound that stabbed
Allie Briskow like a bayonet and left her white and furious. She sat
motionless for a long time, and something told her that