"Plenty of liberty to enjoy themselves----" that was the principle she had found successful in the stockyard and the gardens, and she tried it on Boy without a tremor. Old Joe Longstaffe on his death-bed confirmed the faith of his daughter in this matter of the education or non-education of the child. "Don't meddle," he had said, "God'll grow in her--if you'll let him." Patience Woodburn never forgot her father's words and never had cause to regret that she had followed them. The girl, wayward though she might be at times, never gave her mother a moment's real anxiety. She was straight as a dart, strong as a young hawk, fearless as a lion, and free as the wind. Her simplicity, her purity and strength made people afraid of her. In a crowd they always made way for her: for she was resolute with the almost ruthless resolution of one whose purpose is sure and conscience clean. "You feel," Mr. Haggard once said, "that--she's clear." He waved vaguely. "Pity she's a little heathen," said Mrs. Haggard acridly. "She doesn't know her catechism," answered the mild vicar in his exasperatingly mild way. "Is she any the worse?" "Churchman!" snorted his outraged spouse. Mrs. Haggard's indictment was unfounded. The girl was fierce and swift, but she was not a heathen. Mrs. Woodburn had seen to that. Sometimes she used to take the child to the Children's Services in the little old church on the edge of the Paddock Close. The girl enjoyed the services, and she loved Mr. Haggard; but when, during her grand-dad's lifetime, her mother gave the child her choice between the church and the little God-First chapel on the way to Lewes, she always chose the latter. It may be that her choice was decided by the fact that she drove to the chapel and walked to the church; it may be that, dearly as she loved the vicar, she loved her grand-dad more; or it may be that the simplicity of the chapel, the austerity of the service, and the character of the congregation, all of a kind, close to earth, humble of heart, and russet in hue, attending there for no other reason than because they loved it, appealed to something profound and ineradicable in the spirit of this child bred amongst the austere and simple hills to which she knew herself so close. Old Mat was fond of saying that the girl's mother could do what she liked with her, and nobody else could do anything at all. "I don't try," he would add, "She puts the terror on to me, that gal do." And the old man was right. Different as they were, there was a deep and mysterious sympathy between mother and daughter. And on that sympathy the mother's power was based. Only once was her authority, based as it was upon the spirit, subject to breaking strain. When the girl was fourteen, Mrs. Woodburn decided to send her to the High School at Lewes. Old Mat shook his head; Mrs. Haggard was delighted; the girl herself went about with pursed lips and frozen air. The vicar, meeting her in the village, stopped her.