“Oh,” said Mary, “I am not going into any more streams; I am not so brave now as I used to be.”

“Please lend it me, for all that.”

“Of course I will, if you wish it.”

Strange to say, after this, whether Mary walked out or rode out, she very often met Mr. Walter Clifford.  He was always delighted and surprised.  She was surprised three times, and said so, and after that she came to lower her lashes and blush, but not to start.  Each meeting was a pure accident, no doubt, only she foresaw the inevitable occurrence.

They talked about everything in the world except what was most on their minds.  Their soft tones and expressive eyes supplied that little deficiency.

One day he caught her riding on her little Arab.  The groom fell behind directly.  After they had ridden some distance in silence, Walter broke out: 

“How beautifully you ride!”

“Me!” cried Mary.  “Why, I never had a lesson in my life.”

“That accounts for it.  Let a lady alone, and she does everything more gracefully than a man; but let some cad undertake to teach her, she distrusts herself and imitates the snob.  If you could only see the women in Hyde Park who have been taught to ride, and compare them with yourself!”

“I should learn humility.”

“No; it would make you vain, if anything could.”

“You seem inclined to do me that good turn.  Come, pray, what do these poor ladies do to offend you so?”

“I’ll tell you.  They square their shoulders vulgarly; they hold the reins in their hands as if they were driving, and they draw the reins to their waists in a coarse, absurd way.  They tighten both these reins equally, and saw the poor devil’s mouth with the curb and the snaffle at one time.  Now you know, Mary, the snaffle is a mild bit, and the curb is a sharp one; so where is the sense of pulling away at the snaffle when you are tugging at the curb?  Why, it is like the fellow that made two holes at the bottom of the door—­a big one for the cat to come through and a little one for the kitten.  But the worst of all is they show the caddess so plainly.”

“Caddess!  What is that; goddess you mean, I suppose?”

“No; I mean a cad of the feminine gender.  They seem bursting with affectation and elated consciousness that they are on horseback.  That shows they have only just made the acquaintance of that animal, and in a London riding-school.  Now you hold both reins lightly in the left hand, the curb loose, since it is seldom wanted, the snaffle just feeling the animal’s mouth, and you look right and left at the people you are talking to, and don’t seem to invite one to observe that you are on a horse:  that is because you are a lady, and a horse is a matter of course to you, just as the ground is when you walk upon it.”