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CHAPTER V. 



THE lady's dress ON HORSEBACK. 



I THINK I shall make this a chapter upon Dress. Not that 

 the subject ought, perhaps, rightfully to come in just here, 

 without first introducing some more details about the horse 

 — but I know it to be a popular one with ladies, and it will 

 make a pleasing variety from drier matter, which can be 

 made to hold over very well until by-and-by. 



In the days of Gottfried and the fair Maid of Ghent, 

 ladies rode upon long-tailed palfreys, attired in embroidered 

 robes of velvet or brocade. A century later we find them 

 wearing cloth manufactured into riding gear, but fashioned 

 so extraordinarily as to set us marvelling how on earth 

 they ever bore the weight, or kept their skirt-tails even 

 moderately clean. So far down as the first half of the 

 present century trailing habits were worn, and about that 

 period we find many allusions to the absurd custom, which 

 would seem to convey something like admiration of it. 

 For example, Charlotte Bronte, describing the return of a 

 riding-party in ' Jane Eyre,' says, " Her purple riding-habit 

 almost swept the ground ; " a very questionable grace, in 

 my opinion, and a highly dangerous one. 



Even in the present day our risible faculties are some- 



