Probably, in Elfride's case at least, it was blindness to the greater contingencies of the future she was preparing for herself, which enabled her to ask her father in a quiet voice if he could give her a holiday soon, to ride to St.Launce's and go on to Plymouth.
Now, she had only once before gone alone to Plymouth, and that was in consequence of some unavoidable difficulty.

Being a country girl, and a good, not to say a wild, horsewoman, it had been her delight to canter, without the ghost of an attendant, over the fourteen or sixteen miles of hard road intervening between their home and the station at St.
Launce's, put up the horse, and go on the remainder of the distance by train, returning in the same manner in the evening.

It was then resolved that, though she had successfully accomplished this journey once, it was not to be repeated without some attendance.
But Elfride must not be confounded with ordinary young feminine equestrians.

The circumstances of her lonely and narrow life made it imperative that in trotting about the neighbourhood she must trot alone or else not at all.

Usage soon rendered this perfectly natural to herself.