a UNASKED ADVICE. 



everything else^ bad habits can be learned with fatal 

 facility^ getting rid of them being quite another thing. 



What a number of advantages a lady who rides has 

 over one who does not ! In London, when the weather 

 is not too hot, an hour^s ride or so in the park before 

 lunch is, I am told on good authority, one of the best 

 restoratives after a ball — or, more probably in these days, 

 tivo balls and a concert. When, as seldom happens 

 before July, the weather really is too hot for midday 

 rides, it is surely more profitable to have a canter with 

 papa after five o'clock than to be at a crowded ^' kettle- 

 drum,'' where the proportion of gentlemen to ladies is 

 probably about two per cent ! Besides one can see one's 

 friends — an incalculable advantage to people who might 

 otherwise meet only once, or at most twice a day — and 

 talk to them better when riding; hear where they are 

 going in the evening, and about what time they are likely 

 to be at any especial entertainment. I consider that 

 more business may be done in the saddle than by sitting 

 on a chair ; the drawback (?) being that, as a rule, mamma 

 is not of the riding party, while she probably is of the 

 pedestrian or sedentary one. And if papa's thoughts are 

 far away, in " the House " or the hayfield, as the case 

 may be, and he is for the time no great company, may 

 not a little consolation be gleaned among the owners of 

 those numerous well-bred and well-groomed hacks which 

 are to be seen, between the hours of five and six p.m., 

 being led up and down in front of most of the clubs ? Be 

 it borne in mind, however, that the spirited proprietors 

 of these quadrupeds have mostly an eye, not for make 

 and shape only, but also for action ; and that an awkward 

 position in the saddle may do away, in the morning, with 

 the overnight effect of a newball dress, combined with ever 



