From the very beginning she had always been Boy. Mrs. Haggard, who didn't quite approve of the name--and there were many things Mrs. Haggard didn't quite approve of--once inquired the origin of it. "I think it came," answered Mrs. Woodburn. And certainly nobody but the vicar's wife ever thought or spoke of the girl as Joyce. She grew up in Mrs. Haggard's judgment quite uneducated. That lady, a good but somewhat officious creature, was genuinely distressed and made many protests. The protests were invariably met by Mrs. Woodburn imperturbably as always. "It's how my father was bred," she replied in that plain manner of hers, so plain indeed that conventional people sometimes complained of it as rude. "That's good enough for me." Mrs. Haggard carried her complaint to her husband, the vicar. "There was once a man called Wordsworth, I believe," was all the answer of that enigmatic creature. "You're much of a pair, you and Mrs. Woodburn," snapped his wife as she left the room. "My dear, you flatter me," replied the quiet vicar. On the face of it, indeed, Mrs. Haggard had some ground for her anxiety about the girl. Boy from the beginning was bred in the stables, lived in them, loved them. At four she began to ride astride and had never known a side-saddle or worn a habit all her life. She took to the pigskin as a duck to water; and at seven, Monkey Brand, then in his riding prime, gave her up. "She knows more'n me," he said, half in sorrow, half in pride, as his erstwhile pupil popped her pony over a Sussex heave-gate. "Got wings, she have." "Look-a-there!" But the girl did not desert her first master. She would sit on a table in the saddle-room, swinging her legs, and shaking her fair locks as she listened bright-eyed while Monkey, busy on leather with soap and sponge, told again the familiar story of Cannibal's National. It was on her ninth birthday that, at the conclusion of the oft-told tale, she put a solemn question: "Monkey Brand!" "Yes, Minie." "Do-you-think-I-could-win-with-the National?" "No sayin' but you might, Min." The child's eyes became steel. She set her lips, and nodded her flaxen head with fierce determination. She never recurred to the matter, or mentioned it to others. But from that time forth to ride the National winner became her secret ambition, dwelt upon by day, dreamed over by night, her constant companion in the saddle, nursed secretly in the heart of her heart, and growing always as she grew. Certainly she was a Centaur if ever child was. To the girl indeed her pony was like a dog. She groomed him, fed him, took him to be shod, and scampered over the wide-strewn Downs on him, sometimes bare-backed, sometimes on a numnah, hopping on and off him light as a bird and active as a kitten. Mrs. Woodburn let the child go largely her own way.