do now.

And so, with this incentive, I overcame any private misgivings, and soon
after my return to town attended a fashionable riding-school near Hyde
Park, with the fixed determination to acquire the whole art and mystery
of horsemanship.

That I found learning a pleasure I cannot conscientiously declare. I
have passed happier hours than those I spent in cantering round four
bare whitewashed walls on a snorting horse, with my interdicted stirrups
crossed upon the saddle. The riding-master informed me from time to time
that I was getting on, and I knew instinctively when I was coming off;
but I must have made some progress, for my instructor became more
encouraging. 'Why, when you come here first, Mr. Pulvertoft, sir, you
were like a pair o' tongs on a wall, as they say; whereas now--well, you
can tell yourself how you are,' he would say; though, even then, I
occasionally had reason to regret that I was _not_ on a wall. However, I
persevered, inspired by the thought that each fresh horse I crossed (and
some were very fresh indeed) represented one more barrier surmounted
between myself and Diana, and encouraged by the discovery, after
repeated experiments, that tan was rather soothing to fall upon than
otherwise.

When I walked in the Row, where a few horsemen were performing as
harbingers of spring, I criticised their riding, which I thought
indifferent, as they neglected nearly all the rules. I began to
anticipate a day when I should exhibit a purer and more classic style of
equestrianism. And one morning I saw Diana, who pulled up her dancing
mare to ask me if I had remembered her advice, and I felt proudly able
to reply that I should certainly make my appearance in the Row before
very long.

From that day I was perpetually questioning my riding-master as to when
he considered I should be ripe enough for Rotten Row. He was dubious,
but not actually dissuasive. 'It's like this, you see, sir,' he
explained, 'if you get hold of a quiet, steady horse--why, you won't
come to no harm; but if you go out on an animal that will take advantage
of you, Mr. Pulvertoft, why, you'll be all no-how on him, sir.'

They would have mounted me at the school; but I knew most of the stud
there, and none of them quite came up to my ideal of a 'quiet, steady
horse;' so I went to a neighbouring job-master, from whom I had
occasionally hired a brougham, and asked to be shown an animal he could
recommend to one who had not had much pra