SOMETHING ON DRIVING 217 



It is folly for any woman to natter 

 herself that she needs only a little 

 practice, and that the rest " will come." 

 If she has not begun correctly, practice 

 will only wed her to the faults she must 

 have acquired. 



Assuming, however, for the sake of 

 argument, that, after having discounted 

 her call on an all-protecting Providence 

 and stricken with terror her long-suffer- 

 ing friends, she manages to guide the 

 family nag along the turnpike without 

 the aid of a civil escort to clear the road 

 before her — what of it ? She hasn't 

 learned anything; her form is execra- 

 ble ; and in case of an emergency she is 

 quite as unprepared as when she took 

 up the reins weeks before, with the ill- 

 conceived notion that she was not of 

 the common clay, and that, a whip, 

 rather than a rattle, had been the in- 

 signia of her infantile days. 



