"And those shoes, they are terrible.

If I knew any girls--I never do know them, as a rule--I should beg of them not to play tennis; it is destruction so far as feet go." "Fancy riding so much as that!" says Mr.Woodleigh, who, with Sir Maurice and the others, has been listening to Tita's stories of hunts and rides gone and done.

"Why, how _long_ have you been hunting ?" "Ever since I was thirteen," says Tita.
"Why, that is about your age now, isn't it ?" says Gower.
"We lived at Oakdean then," goes on Tita, taking, very properly, no notice of him, "and my father liked me to ride.

My cousin was with us there, and he taught me.

I rode a great deal before"-- she pauses, and her lips quiver; she is evidently thinking of some grief that has entered into her young life and saddened it--"before I went to live with my uncle." "It was your cousin who taught you to ride, then?
Is he a son of the--the uncle with whom you now live ?" asks Sir Maurice, who is rather ashamed of exhibiting such interest in her.
"No, no, indeed! He is a son of my aunt's--my father's sister.