lazed, and lo! It
was pigskin, and that made the difference. I would not have it
changed, because the Texan is always sneering at English pigskin,
and I wanted to learn to ride on it; but, until the last quarter
of the hour, I expected to slip off. I rather think I should
have," she adds, "only just as I was ready to slip off on one
side, something would occur to make me slip to the other. I shall
not be afraid of pigskin again, ad you would better try it, every
one of you. Suppose you should get a horse from a livery stable
some day with one of those slippery saddles!"

"I am thinking of buying a horse," says the society young lad;
"but the master says that I do not know enough to ride a beast
that has been really trained. Fancy that!"

"And all the authorities agree with him," says Versatilia, who
has accumulated a small library of books on equestrianism since
she began to take lessons. "Your horse ought not to know much
more than you do--for if he do, you will find him perfectly
unmanageable."

Here you and Nell flee on the wings of discretion. The daring of
the girl! To tell the society young lady that a horse may know
more than she does!

XII.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy.
_Shakespeare_.

And now, Esmeralda, having determined to put your master's advice
into practice and to "keep riding," you think that you must have
a habit in order to be ready to take to the road whenever you
have an opportunity, and to be able to accompany Theodore, should
he desire to repeat your music-ride? And you would like to know
just what it will cost, and everything about it? And first, what
color can you have?

You "can" have any color, Esmeralda, and you "can" have any
material, for that matter. Queen Guinevere wore grass green silk,
and if her skirt were as long as those worn by Matilda of
Flanders, Norman William's wife, centuries after, her women must
have spent several hours daily in mending it, unless she had a
new habit for every ride, or unless the English forest roads were
wider than they are to-day. But all the ladies of Arthur's court
seem to have ridden in their ordinary dress. Enid, for instance,
was arrayed in the faded silk which had been her house-dress and
waking-dress in girlhood, when she performed her little feat of
guiding six armor-laden horses. Queen Elizabeth and Mary Stuart
seem to have liked velvet, either green or black, and to have
adorned it with gold lace, and both