"I want to know something, Mr. Haggard," said the girl in her determined way. He looked at her over his spectacles. "Yes." "Can they put you in prison if you lose your money?" "Not if you lose it honestly," replied the vicar. One reason the girl liked him so much was that he never played the fool. The heavy horse-chaff with which the average Englishman of the Duke's type, in his elephantine efforts at gallantry, thinks it necessary to adorn his conversation, were not for him. "Oh, he'll lose it honestly all right," cried the girl eagerly, unconscious of the fact that she was giving herself away, or careless of it. It was not hard for the other to gauge her mind. Casually he turned over an evening paper. "I see there's good news about Mr. Silver's Bank," he said. "It's weathered the storm." He pointed out to her a paragraph in the stop-press column. CHAPTER XXIV The Man with the Gamp The good news was confirmed. That night a telegram came from Mr. Silver to say he was coming down next morning and asking them to meet him at Lewes. "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.