A new Helen of Troy she may be, and
yet she is but the ninth daughter of a drunken Gloucestershire
baronet."
'Twas here that Roxholm found himself checking his start, but he had
not checked it soon enough to escape the observance of the quickest
sighted man in Europe.
"What!" he said, "you have heard of her?"
"I have seen her, your Grace," Roxholm answered, "on the hunting field
in Gloucestershire."
"Is she so splendid a young creature as they say? Was she in boy's
attire, as we hear her rascal father lets her ride with him?"
"I thought her a boy, and had never seen one like her," said Roxholm,
and he was amazed to feel himself disturbed as if he spoke not of a
child, but of a beauty of ripe years.
"Is she of such height and strength and wondrous development as rumour
tells us?" his Grace continued, still observing him as if with
interest. "At twelve years old, 'tis told, she is tall enough for
eighteen, and can fence and leap hedges and break horses, and that she
plays the tyrant over men four times her age."
"I saw her but once, your Grace," replied Roxholm. "She was tall and
strong and handsome."
"Go and see her again, my lord Marquess," said the Captain-General,
turning to his papers. "But do not wait too long. Such beauties must be
caught early."
When he went back to his quarters, my lord Marquess strolled through
the quaint streets of the town slowly, and looking upon the ground as
he walked.
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