en's
constitutions, though there is no sort of doubt that the nervous energy
generated by any pleasurable emotion is in itself a great preservative
from unfavorable influences.

My riding-master was the best and most popular teacher in
London--Captain Fozzard--or, as he was irreverently called among his
young Amazons, "Old Fozzard." When my mother took me to the riding
school, he recalled, with many compliments, her own proficiency as an
equestrian, and said he would do his best to make me as fine a
horsewoman as she had been. He certainly did his best to improve a very
good seat, and a heavy, defective hand with which nature had endowed me;
the latter, however, was incorrigible, and so, though I was always a
fearless horsewoman, and very steady in my saddle, I never possessed the
finer and more exquisite part of the accomplishment of riding, which
consists in the delicate and skillful management of a horse's mouth.
Fozzard's method was so good that all the best lady riders in London
were his pupils, and one could tell one of them at a glance, by the
perfect squareness of the shoulders to the horse's head, which was one
invariable result of his teaching. His training was eminently calculated
to produce that result, and to make us all but immovable in our saddles.
Without stirrup, without holding the reins, with our arms behind us, and
as often as not sitting left-sided on the saddle, to go through violent
plunging, rearing, and kicking lessons, and taking our horses over the
bar, was a considerable test of a firm seat, and in all these special
feats I became a proficient.

One day, when I had gone to the school more for exercise than a lesson,
and was taking a solitary canter in the tan for my own amusement, the
little door under the gallery opened, and Fozzard appeared, introducing
a middle-aged lady and a young girl, who remained standing there while
he advanced toward me, and presently began to put me through all my most
crucial exercises, apparently for their edification. I was always
delighted to go through these particular feats, which amused me
excessively, and in which I took great pride. So I sat through them all,
till, upon a sign from the elder lady, Fozzard, with extreme deference,
opened the door and escorted them forth, and then returning to dismount
me, informed me that I had given a very satisfactory sample of his
teaching to the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria, the latter of
whom was to be p