surprise of all of us, she caught the action of the horse at the first step, and made the best attempt at trotting I ever saw for a beginner. Feeling that trotting fatigued her, she asked to be allowed to canter, and this she did in very good form. But the crowning part of the thing was, that when we were about to take her off her horse, she begged to be allowed to have a jump. I confess, I thought the riding master wrong in consenting to this. But again our little friend electrified us all. A hurdle was put up, well sloped, so as to make the jump a very moderate one, the little pupil's hands placed, and her position rectified. No sooner had the horse turned the corner of the school, and before the riding master had time to check her, than the girl's eye lit up just as I had seen it in the gallery. She caught the horse fast by the head, hit him with her heel, put down her hands, and sat as though she had been hunting for years. It was too late to stop her, and any interference at the moment would have done more harm than good. With my heart in my mouth, I saw the horse go at the hurdle. He was one that had "an eye in every toe," and did not know how to make a mistake. But his daring little rider had roused him thoroughly, and he jumped high enough to clear a big fence, and far enough to take him over a small brook. Just as the horse took off, I shouted involuntarily, "Sit back;" and the little enthusiast answered as though my voice had been inspiration. Her lithe little figure was bent from the waist, precisely at the right moment; and she landed safe, except that the concussion threw her slightly up in the saddle. Her marvellous aptitude (talent the professionals would have called it) induced the riding master to let her make another attempt, and this time, putting her horse at the hurdle at the same dashing pace (which, by the way, with her wonderful nerve and confidence, made it easier for her), she sat in the saddle, as the old groom who tended the hurdles said, "as if she had grown there," and landed fair and true without jolt or concussion. This young lady is now one of the most brilliant horsewomen in England. Her genius (if I may be permitted the expression), joined to close application and the best of opportunities of riding good horses, enabled her in a brief space to far outstrip all her youthful competitors, and in less than twelve months after the time I speak of she could execute most of the "bending lesson," at a canter as well as a professional rider, while over the country with hounds she was always close to her pilot, than whom there was no better man. This when she was barely thirteen years old.