ers in Boston and in New York,
friends who have long practiced together, who can dancer the
lancers and Virginia reels as easily on horseback as on foot, and
who can ride at the ring as well as Lord Lindesay himself, or as
well as the pretty English girls who amuse themselves with the
sport in India.

"Just think," you sigh, "to be able to make your horse go forward
and back, and to move in a circle, a little bit of a circle, and
to do all of it exactly in time! Oh!"

And then, seeing Theodore perfectly unmoved, your master tells of
the military music rides when, rank after rank, the soldiers dash
across the wide spaces of the school and stop at a word, or by a
preconcerted, silent signal, every horse's head in line, every
left hand down, saber or lance exactly poised, every foot
motionless, horse and rider still as if wrought from bronze. And
then he tells of the labyrinthine evolutions when the long line
moving over the school floor coils and uncoils itself more
swiftly than any serpent, each horse moving at speed, each one
obeying as implicitly as any creature of brass and iron moved by
steam. And then he talks of broadsword fights, in which the left
hand, managing the horse, outdoes the cunning of the right, and
of the great reviews, when, if ever, a monarch must feel his
power as he sees his squadrons dash past him, saluting as one
man, and reflects on the expenditure of mental and physical power
represented in that one moment's display.

"You can't learn to do such things as these," he says, "by mere
rough riding. Why, only the other day, when Queen Victoria went
to Sandringham, the gentlemen of the Norfolk County hunt turned
out to escort her carriage, all in pink, all wearing the green
velvet caps of the hunt, all splendidly mounted and perfectly
appointed. They were a magnificent sight, and it was no wonder
that Her Majesty looked at them with approval.

"In a dash across country they would probably have surpassed any
other riders in the world, unless, perhaps, those of some other
English country, but when Her Majesty and the Prince of Wales
appeared at a front window, and the gentlemen rode past to salute
them, what happened? The first three or four ranks went on well
enough, although Frenchmen, or Spaniards, or Germans would have
done better, because they, had they chosen, would have saluted
and then reined backward, but the Englishmen made a gallant show,
and Her Majesty smiled. Somebody raised a chee