For some time after my first coming out I lost my sleep almost entirely, and used to lie wide awake the greater part of the night.  With more use of my new profession this nervous wakefulness wore off; but I was subject to very frequent and severe pains in the side, which any strong emotion almost invariably brought on, and which were relieved by nothing but exercise on horseback.  The refreshment of this panacea for bodily and mental ailments was always such to me, that often, returning from balls where I had danced till daylight, I used to feel that if I could have an hour’s gallop in the fresh morning air, I should be revived beyond all sleep that I could then get.

Once only I was allowed to test my theory, and I found that the result answered my expectations entirely.  I had been acting in Boston every night for a whole week, and on Saturday night had acted in two pieces, and was to start at one o’clock in the morning for New York, between which and Boston there was no railroad in those days.  I was not feeling well, and was much exhausted by my hard work, but I was sure that if I could only begin my journey on horseback instead of in the lumbering, rolling, rocking, heavy, straw-and-leather-smelling “Exclusive Extra” (that is, private stage-coach), I should get over my fatigue and the rest of the journey with some chance of not being completely knocked up by it.  After much persuasion my father consented, and after the two pieces of our farewell night, to a crowded, enthusiastic house, all the excitement of which of course told upon me even more than the actual exertion of acting, I had some supper, and at one o’clock, with our friend, Major M——­, and ——­, got on horseback, and rode out of Boston.  Major M——­ rode with us only about three miles, and then turned back, leaving us to pursue our road to Dedham, seven miles farther, where the carriage, with my father and aunt, was to meet us.

The thermometer stood at seventeen degrees below zero; it was the middle of a Massachusetts winter, and the cold intense.  The moon was at the full, and the night as bright as day; not a stone but was visible on the iron-hard road, that rang under our horses’ hoofs.  The whole country was sheeted with snow, over which the moon threw great floods of yellow light, while here and there a broken ridge in the smooth, white expanse turned a sparkling, crystalline edge up to the lovely splendor.  It was wonderfully beautiful and exhilarating, though so cold that my vail was all frozen over my lips, and we literally hardly dared utter a word for fear of swallowing scissors and knives in the piercing air, which, however, was perfectly still and without the slightest breath of wind.  So we rode hard and fast and silently, side by side, through the bright, profound stillness of the night, and never drew rein till we reached Dedham, where the carriage with my father and aunt had not yet arrived.  Not a soul was stirring, and not a sound was heard, in the little New England