  The weather for that day had been completely wrong. Had I been faced with that same weather the year previous, I would have been playing outside under the stern eye of my governess, a long-faced mule of a mare with a sour-apple frown and a penchant for mercilessly crushing anything resembling joy under her roughly-trimmed hooves. But still, a day outside was much to be preferred to the days spent indoors, in our musty manor hall, endlessly repeating lessons by rote and learning all the various ways in which to behave as a fine gentlecolt. 