CHAPTER IV. 



MOUNTING AND DISMOUNTING. 



" • Stand, Bayard, stand ! ' — the steed obeyed, 

 With arching neck and bending head, 

 And glancing eye and quivering ear, 

 As if he loved her voice to hear." 



Lady of the Lake. 



A NOTICE in riding always experiences in a 

 greater or less degree a sense of trepidation and 

 embarrassment w^hen, for the first time, a horse 

 duly caparisoned for a lady rider is put before 

 her, and she is expected to seat herself in the 

 saddle. If she be a timid person, the apparent 

 difficulty of this feat occasions a dismay which 

 the good-natured champing of the bit and im- 

 patient head shakings of the horse do not tend 

 to diminish. If, however, she be accustomed to 

 horses as pets, and understand their ways, she 

 will be much less apprehensive about mounting 

 than the lady who has only obs-erved them at a 

 distance and is entirely ignorant of their nature. 

 The author has known ladies, after their horses 

 had been brought to the door, to send them 

 back to the stable because coura^re failed them 



