village; the country tavern was fast shut up; not a light twinkled from any window, or thread of smoke rose from any chimney; every house had closed its eyes and ears, and gone to sleep.  We had ridden the whole way as fast as we could, and had kept our blood warm by the violent exercise, but there was every danger, if we sat many minutes on our saddles in the piercing cold, that we should be all the worse instead of the better for that circumstance.  Mr. ——­ rode along the houses, looking for some possible shelter, and at last, through the chink of a shutter, spying a feeble glimmer of light, dismounted, and, knocking, asked if it were possible for me to be admitted there for a few minutes, till the carriage, which could not be far distant, came up.  He was answered in the affirmative, and I jumped down from my saddle, and ran into the friendly refuge, while he paced rapidly to and fro before the house, leading the horses, to keep himself and them alike from freezing; a man was to come on the coach-box with the driver, to take them back to Boston.  On looking round I found myself in a miserable little low room, heated almost to suffocation by an iron stove, and stifling with the peculiar smell of black dye-stuffs.  Here, by the light of two wretched bits of candle, two women were working with the utmost dispatch at mourning-garments for a funeral which was to take place that day, in a few hours.  They did not speak to me after making room for me near the stove, and the only words they exchanged with each other were laconic demands for scissors, thread, etc.; and so they rapidly plied their needles in silence, while I, suddenly transported from the cold brightness without into this funereal, sweltering atmosphere of what looked like a Black Hole made of crape and bombazine, watched the lugubrious occupation of the women as if I was in a dream, till the distant rumbling of wheels growing more and more distinct, I took leave of my temporary hostesses with many thanks (they were poor New England workwomen, by whom no other species of acknowledgment would have been received), and was presently fast asleep in the corner of the carriage, and awoke only long after to feel rested and refreshed, and well able to endure the fatigue of the rest of the journey.  In spite of this fortunate result, I do not now, after a lapse of forty years, think the experiment one that would have answered with many young women’s constitutions, though there is no sort of doubt that the nervous energy generated by any pleasurable emotion is in itself a great preservative from unfavorable influences.

My riding-master was the best and most popular teacher in London—­Captain Fozzard—­or, as he was irreverently called among his young Amazons, “Old Fozzard.”  When my mother took me to the riding school, he recalled, with many compliments, her own proficiency as an equestrian, and said he would do his best to make me as fine a horsewoman as she had been.  He certainly did his best to