“I knew he’d come if he could to-morrow,” cried the girl.

Her mother looked at her.

“It’s your birthday, Boy,” she said.

The girl’s fair face flushed.

“He doesn’t know that,” she said, on the defensive.  “And you’re not to tell.  It’s the last day of hunting.  That’s what I meant.”

She was indeed seventeen next day.  And the sign of her womanhood was that when she came down in the morning her hair was bunched in a neat little coil at the back of her head.  Because of it she was shy and somewhat defiant.  Dressed for hunting in snowy shirt and long-skirted dark coat, she entered the parlour more swiftly than her wont, in her shoes and stockings, and carrying her riding-boots in her hand.

Her father’s mild blue eye penetrated her secret at once.

“That’s a little bit o’ better,” he said.  “It’s Miss Woodburn now.”

“Now then, father,” reproved Mrs. Woodburn.

“Oh, I knows my place, plea Gob,” mumbled the old man.  “Ought to arter all the trainin’ you been at the pains to put me to.”  And he winked and chuckled and grunted over his porridge.

“Let me look at you, Boy,” said her mother, when the teasing old man had gone.

The girl coloured faintly.  Her mother kissed her.  “Joyce,” she said gravely, “you’re a woman now.”

“Am I, mother?” laughed the girl.  “I feel like a boy sometimes still.”

She was gay with an unusual gaiety.

Her mother marked it with those observant eyes of hers.

After the pair had read together, as their custom was, Mrs. Woodburn laid the Bible down and took up her knitting.

Boy pulled on her boots before the fire.

“I hope you won’t marry out of your own class, Boy,” said Mrs. Woodburn at last quietly.  “We’re humble folk, as dad says.”

“I don’t think I shall marry at all,” replied the girl curtly.  “I don’t feel like it.”

The mother continued on her tranquil way.

“When you marry, marry your own sort,” she advised.

Boy was silent for a time.

“Isn’t Mr. Silver our sort?” she asked at last, her eyes on her mother’s.

Mrs. Woodburn, for all her liberal mind, was of the older generation.

“My dear,” she said, “he’s an Eton man.”

“He’s not like one,” replied the girl shortly.  “He’s a gentleman.”

“My dear, Eton men are gentlemen,” reproved Mrs. Woodburn.

“Some,” replied the girl.  “The Duke is.”  She added maliciously—­“Sometimes.”

* * * * *

Old Mat, Monkey Brand, and Albert started early for the meet.

It was a long hour later before mother and daughter, waiting in the parlour, heard the steady clop-clop of a horse’s feet and the crisp trundle of wheels on the road.

In another moment the buggy had drawn up at the gate; Goosey Gander was stretching his neck, and Jerry of the corrugated brow was touching his hat to the descending passenger.