“I never ride: I hate and detest riding. I never could be dependent upon the motions of an animal. Horses are my aversion; jackasses I despise. God, when He gave us legs of our own, doubtless intended us to make use of them. I have used mine ever since I was a baby, and they are not worn out yet. I got upon my feet sooner than most children, and have kept them to their duty ever since. I am a great walker; I have been walking all my life. Do you know that I have walked over Europe alone, and on foot?” “So I have heard,” said Lyndsay. “It must have been an arduous undertaking for a lady.” “Far easier than you imagine. Women are just as able to shift for themselves as men, if they would follow my example, and make the trial. I have scarcely sat still for the last twenty years. There is not a remarkable spot in Europe that I have not visited, or mountain but what I have climbed, or cavern that I have left unexplored. Three years ago I commenced a pedestrian tour through Great Britain, which I accomplished greatly to my own satisfaction. When I take a fancy to a place, I stay in it until I have explored all the walks in the neighbourhood. Directly I grow tired, I am off. ’Tis a happy, independent sort of life I lead. Confinement would soon kill me.” “Your friends must feel very anxious about you,” said Flora, “during your absence.” “Friends! Fiddlesticks! Who told you I had any friends who care a fig for me or my movements? I am gloriously independent, and mean to remain so. There is but one person in the world who is related to me in the most remote degree, or who dares to trouble their head about me or my doings, and he is only a half brother. He has opposed himself against my freedom of thought and action; but I don’t care that”—(snapping her fingers vigorously)—“for him or his opinions. He has made war upon my roaming propensities all his life. As if a woman has not as much right to see the world as a man, if she can pay her own expenses, and bear her own burthen, without being a trouble to any one. It is certainly no business of his how I spend my money, or where and how I pass my life. Not long ago I heard that he was going to issue a writ of lunacy against me, in order to get me and my property into his possession. This is mean; for he very well knows that I am not mad; and he is very rich, so that there is no excuse for his avarice. Fortunately, he don’t know me personally—never saw me since I was a child—and as I never go by my real name, it is not a very easy matter for him to discover me. I don’t like this place, but it is quiet and out of the way. I think I shall remain where I am, till he gets tired of hunting me out. I trust to your honour, young people; you must not betray my secret.” Both promised to say nothing about what she had so frankly communicated.