horses were shifting their positions continually, and give her friend even the least help in mounting, proved too much even for the highly-finished lady equestrian, and as the _contretemps_ occurred on a lone country road, I believe they would have been compelled to lead their horses a considerable distance, had I not chanced opportunely to arrive. In such places as Rotten-row a lady instructor may get on tolerably well with her pupil, because, in case of any mishap, there are plenty of men always at hand who know what a horse is; but in out-of-the-way country places it is very different. The British rustic, whatever other good qualities he may possess, is not celebrated, as a rule, for over politeness to ladies--strangers particularly. In proof of the above, there is a story current in this neighbourhood which is likely enough to be true, although I cannot vouch for it myself. The tale runs thus:--A lady (one of the daughters of a noble house) having married, had gone abroad with her husband, and been absent from the home of her early days so long that the uprising generation of young people about the estate knew her not. She was taking a ride one day unattended, and mounted on a steady cob, had been visiting the long-cherished scenes of her childhood, when she came to a very awkward bridle gate, seated on which was a juvenile "wopstraw" in duck frock, leather leggings, and wideawake. The boy jumped down and opened the gate for the lady, at the same time taking off his hat. Now the fair recipient of this delicate attention was well aware of the fact that the village people on the paternal estate were celebrated in the county for their rough manners to strangers, ladies forming no exception, so she was agreeably surprised at the exceptional good behaviour of the youngster, the more so as she was quite sure he did not know her. Taking a shilling out of her purse she gave it to him, observing: "You are a very good boy," and added, laughing, "I am sure you were not born at D." (the name of the principal village on the estate). But to the donor's horror the youngster, grasping his hat firmly in one fist and the shilling in the other, with a fiery glare of indignation in his fat face and flashing eye, replied, "Thou be'st a loyar (liar), I wor." _Verbum sap._ All rustics are not so ill behaved as the one above mentioned. But as very few of them will go far out of their road to assist a stranger, it is as well that ladies riding in remote country parts should be attended by a gentleman; and I repeat, for all purposes of instruction, the attendance of a man will be found far more efficient than that of a lady. CHAPTER VI. The frontispiece represents the stamp of horse best calculated to carry a lady, and is a very truthful likeness of a five-year-old horse, named Prince Arthur, a son of the celebrated racehorse Stockwell, his dam a half-bred Arab mare.