on, and
could not part with it. She had also the will to reward it.

At her intercession, Robert was spared an introduction to the
magistrates. She made light of his misdemeanours, assuring everybody that
so splendid a horseman deserved to be dealt with differently from other
offenders. The gentlemen who waited upon Farmer Eccles went in obedience
to her orders.

Then came the scene on Ditley Marsh, described to that assembly at the
Pilot, by Stephen Bilton, when she perceived that Robert was manageable
in silken trammels, and made a bet that she would show him tamed. She won
her bet, and saved the gentlemen from soiling their hands, for which they
had conceived a pressing necessity, and they thanked her, and paid their
money over to Algernon, whom she constituted her treasurer. She was
called "the man-tamer," gracefully acknowledging the compliment. Colonel
Barclay, the moustachioed horseman, who had spoken the few words to
Robert in passing, now remarked that there was an end of the military
profession.

"I surrender my sword," he said gallantly.

Another declared that ladies would now act in lieu of causing an appeal
to arms.

"Similia similibus, &c.," said Edward. "They can, apparently, cure what
they originate."

"Ah, the poor sex!" Mrs. Lovell sighed. "When we bring the millennium to
you, I believe you will still have a word against Eve."

The whole parade back to the stables was marked by pretty speeches.

"By Jove! but he ought to have gone down on his knees, like a horse when
you've tamed him," said Lord Suckling, the young guardsman.

"I would mark a distinction between a horse and a brave man, Lord
Suckling," said the lady; and such was Mrs. Lovell's dignity when an
allusion to Robert was forced on her, and her wit and ease were so
admirable, that none of those who rode with her thought of sitting in
judgement on her conduct. Women can make for themselves new spheres, new
laws, if they will assume their right to be eccentric as an
unquestionable thing, and always reserve a season for showing forth like
the conventional women of society.

The evening was Mrs. Lovell's time for this important re-establishment of
her position; and many a silly youth who had sailed pleasantly with her
all the day, was wrecked when he tried to carry on the topics where she
reigned the lady of the drawing-room. Moreover, not being eccentric from
vanity, but simply to accommodate what had once been her tastes, and were