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4 However, I had been reading up a little on the subject, and feeling the confidence in myself which a very little knowledge is apt to impart, I was determined to try my hand.

I had remarked that there was a certain French system which was, in the several works I had consulted, always spoken of with respect as a complete and original method, so I obtained a copy of the book, in which is set forth the Méthode d'Équitation basée sur de nouveaux Principes, par F. Baucher, and having disentangled (no easy task) what was really practical from the enveloping mass of conceited sham scientific nonsense, I had numbered the margin so as to make a series of simple progressive lessons of half an hour each. The volume in question, which was not, by-the-bye, the present improved edition, I now produced in a somewhat dog-eared condition from under my arm. My wife, seeing that remonstrance was of no avail, took a seat on the veranda, so as to be ready to advise and assist, while my excellent friends, the farmer and his wife, came out "to see the circus," as they said, and established themselves in suitable midsummer attitudes, with countenances of amused expectation.

"The first few lessons must be given on foot," said I, and spreading my Baucher open upon the "horse-block," I proceeded to carry out its first injunction by placing myself, with riding-whip under my arm, in front of the horse, which was already saddled and