pected to inherit the donkey.

About this time, as all my friends went hunting once or twice a week, I
determined to do the same. Now, as I had never been a good rider, and
had anything but an English seat in the saddle, I went to a riding-school
and underwent a thorough course both on the pig-skin and bare-backed. My
teacher, Mr. Goodchild, said eventually of me that I was the only person
whom he had ever known who had at my time of life learned to ride well.
But to do this I gave my whole mind and soul to it; and Goodchild's
standard, and still more that of his riding-master, who had been a
captain in a cavalry regiment, was very high. I used to feel quite as if
I were a boy again, and one under pretty severe discipline at that, when
the Captain was drilling me. For his life he could not treat his pupils
otherwise than as recruits. "Sit up straighter, sir! Do you call _that_
sitting up? _That's_ not the way to hold your arms! Knees in! Why,
sir, when I was learning to ride I was made to put shillings between my
knees and the side, and if I dropped one _I forfeited it_!"

Then in due time came the meets, and the fox and hare hunting, during
which I found my way, I believe, into every village or nook for twenty
miles round. By this time I had forgotten all my troubles, mental or
physical, and after riding six or seven hours in a soft fog, would come
home the picture of health.

I remember that one very cold morning I was riding alone to the meet on a
monstrous high black horse which Goodchild had bought specially for me,
when I met two gypsy women, full blood, selling wares, among them woollen
mittens--just what I wanted, for my hands were almost frozen in Paris
kids. The women did not know me, but I knew them by description, and
great was the amazement of one when I addressed her by name and in
Romany.

"_Pen a mandy_, _Priscilla Cooper_, _sa buti me sosti del tute for adovo
pustini vashtini_?" (Tell me, Priscilla Cooper, how much should I give
you for those woollen gloves?)

"Eighteen pence, master." The common price was ninepence.

"I will _not_ give you eighteen pence," I replied.

"Then how much _will_ you give, master?" asked Priscilla.

"_Four shillings_ will I give, and not a penny less--_miri pen_--you may
take it or leave it."

I went off with the gloves, while the women roared out blessings in
Romany. There was something in the whole style of the gift, or the
_manner_ of giving it, whi