I9D RIDING FOR LADIES. 



keeper — probably it is, in many instances — but it is my 

 lady's fault in a great measure also, inasmuch as she has 

 neither seen to the comforts of her guest, nor made in- 

 quiries concerning them. However this may be, or with 

 whomsoever the fault may lie, the wardrobe is a sealed 

 book, into which we are not permitted to peer, and so we 

 cast our despairing ^y^s around us for some substitute, 

 and brighten as we perceive a tempting-looking chest of 

 drawers ; but it likewise is a deception, for it is found to 

 contain articles of children's clothing folded away in the 

 top receptacles, while the lower ones have toilet linen in 

 them, and the big deep one at the bottom contains a bolster 

 doubled in two, like a huge sausage put away to keep. 

 This being the case, we shake a dismal head, and proceed 

 to lay out our neat habit-skirts and other things on the bed- 

 rail, and on the backs of the chairs ; and by-and-by, when 

 we return to our room to dress for dinner, we find that a 

 remorseful hostess, or a conscience-stricken maid, has un- 

 locked one of the mighty doors of the mysterious "sealed 

 book," and has graciously crammed three or four satin 

 gowns on to one of the back pegs, leaving the front ones 

 free to hold whatever we may be pleased to hang upon 

 them. Sometimes even this small boon is not vouchsafed, 

 and we run the tether of our visit with only chair-backs to 

 depend upon for hanging purposes, and with the cheerful 

 consciousness that all the maids in the establishment have 

 tried on and admired themselves in every single article 

 beloneinsf to us for which we have been unable to find 

 room in our trunks. I once caught a smart abigail in an 



