If a horse is properly broken, and has a man about him who will give him plenty of work, and keep him from getting above himself, and his fair owner has been as well taught as her horse, she ought to be as safe on his back as in her brougham, in any kind of riding, except in exceptional cases in the hunting field. By exceptional cases I mean where a lady, unaccompanied by a good pilot, takes a line of her own when hounds are going fast in a big grass country, and rides (jealous of the field) at impracticable places. In such case she is likely enough to get down, horse and all. But even so--and I have witnessed more than one such accident--I have never found that the lady got hurt by the spur when she wore the sort I allude to; and again, I think it is only just to that clever loriner, Mr. Latchford, to say that he has invented a lady's stirrup which renders danger from it in the event of a fall next to impossible--certainly she cannot be dragged by it. In this stirrup there is no opening at the side by means of springs or complicated machinery of any sort. It requires neither diagram or drawing to describe it, because it is the perfection of mechanism--extreme simplicity. One has only to imagine an ordinary stirrup, rather elongated than usual from the opening for the leather, the bottom bar broad and flat; the latter perforated with two holes. Within the above-named stirrup another, a size smaller, but fitting nicely into it. On the lower side of the bottom bar of the inner stirrup two projections, or obtuse points of steel, which fit into the holes of the lower bar of the outer stirrup. Now, as long as the lady is in her saddle the inner stirrup must, from its mechanism, remain in its place; but in the event of her being thrown her weight acts upon the lower part of the outer stirrup, which turns over and releases the inner stirrup entirely. To return, however, to the question proper of spurs for a lady, I must say that they are of the greatest assistance to her when, having acquired the necessary degree of steadiness on her horse, she desires to "wake him up." Too much whip is a bad thing. In riding in the country a lady must perforce have to open a bridle gate sometimes for herself, and if she is always using a whip to liven her horse up, she will find it difficult to get him to stand still, even while she opens the lightest of gates. As regards the pupil in the school, I repeat she should be habituated to wear a spur as soon as her progress justifies it. CHAPTER X. THE CANTERING LESSON (_continued_). Having satisfied himself as to the proficiency of his pupil in cantering "going large"--that is, round the school or _manége_,--the attention of the instructor should next be directed to teaching her to make the turns and circles, and execute the "half passage" with precision.