cided to take up horseback riding. Miss
Hamm is fond of horseback riding.

However, I have not informed her of the decision at which I have
arrived. It is my intention to prosecute my lessons in private at the
establishment of the village liveryman and then, when I have fully
mastered the art, I shall some day appear before her, properly accoutred
and attired, bestriding a mettlesome charger. I picture her astonishment
and her delight at thus beholding me in my new role of a finished and
adept equestrian. In order to confer a pleasant surprise upon one's
friends, I feel that I would go farther even than this. Indeed, a desire
to do valiant and heroic deeds, to rescue imperilled ones from burning
buildings or from floods, to perform acts of foolhardiness and daring
upon the field of carnage, has often stirred within me here of late. I
struggle with these impulses, which heretofore have been foreign to my
being, yet at the same time would welcome opportunity to vent them.
However, all things in their proper order and one thing at a time. I
shall begin by becoming an accomplished horseman.

In anticipation of such an achievement I feel, as it were, youthful--in
fact, almost boyish. After all, what matters a few years' difference in
age as between friends? Is not one as young as one feels?

* * * * *

MAY THE EIGHTEENTH.--Spent the evening at the Hamm residence as usual.

A perfect day and a perfect evening, barring one small disappointment.
Miss Waddleton vetoed my plans for the rendition of the balcony scene
at commencement next month. Yet I do not count as wasted the time spent
in private rehearsals of the role of Romeo, but have, on the contrary,
derived much joy from repeated conning of the speeches attributed to him
by the Bard. At a time not far distant "Lear" was my favourite among
Shakespeare's plays. Now I marvel that I should ever have preferred any
of his works to "Romeo and Juliet."

* * * * *

MAY THE TWENTY-SECOND.--After reflection extending over a period of
days, I have abandoned my perhaps o'erhasty intention of taking up
horseback riding, my preliminary experiences in that direction having
been rather disagreeable as to the physical side. Even now, forty-eight
hours after the initial lesson, I am still much bruised about the limbs
and elsewhere and, because of a certain corporeal stiffness due to
repeated jarrings, I walk with painful di