house about a quarter of a mile off on the heath, her vague impression being, I believe, that I am unfitted by sedentary pursuits for any of the physical work demanded o "a man" in buckling or unbuckling harness. But it wa not necessary, this time; in about a minute the poor mare recovered sufficiently to raise herself again, but with bleeding hocks and trembling like an aspen-leaf. It was "the megrims," a complaint from which the books cheerfully assure you that a horse which has once had a fit of it is never again safe. Here was what a French friend of mine once called "a thundering blow" to our hopes. And here, of course, began one of those dismal "processions" of which I have already recorded our experience and our horror. I led the mare, still slightly trembling; the dogs were put into their double strap, and with Cecilia brought up the rear of the mournful party. Fortunately there were no rustics to witness our discomfiture. Not a soul did we meet till we reached the lonely inn. But we held sad communings on the way, recalling all the lore of our various handy-books as to horses and their treatment which bore on this complaint in all its varieties, from slight shaking of the head to the climax of "mad staggers." When we reached the inn, I despatched by post a summons to a neighbouring veterinary surgeon, and then we abandoned ourselves to despondency. Devonshire became obviously impossible; even Dorsetshire faded into an ideal not likely to be realised; and a ghastly vision of future processions of the same nature as to-day's, and as long as that line of Banquo's kingly posterity which paraded themselves before Macbeth in the

witches' cave, spread out in dreary array before my imagination. Here was an explanation of Watson's complaisance in selling Nancy, which did more honour to his understanding than to ours. Our prospects were really dismal. The New Forest is a lonely place. "Megrims might at any time result in a fall which would break the carriage, or, indeed, the mare's legs, and without help within five miles. I brooded dejectedly over these things,

"And fears and fancies thick upon me came,

Dim sadness and blind thoughts I knew not, nor could name."

Indeed, when, while following out the reverie contained in the same poem, I thought

"Of him who walked in glory and in joy,

Following his plough along the mountain-side,"

I felt there could have been no glory or joy for him at all, had he been aware that his plough-horse was subject to "Megrims." The very notion of "a driving-tour became hateful to me, as I sat gloomily in my inn. I reproached you for your advice. I bewailed my own folly in taking it. I was wroth with myself for having been at once a compliant husband and

A DOCILE READER.

III.

SIR,―The horse-books assert, in the midst of their very uncomfortable information about "megrims," that the class of horses called "star-gazers" are particularly liable to this disease. But I never detected any ambitious astronomical tendencies in poor Nancy, and so could not reproach myself for having bought her under any "notice" of her habit of indulging in those dizzy aspirations which end in fits of giddiness. Our first drop of consolation was given us by the veterinary, who arrived after a delay of a day or two, and who drove himself over to our inn with a horse that must, I think, have been barely rescued by his skill from the tomb, so wretched was its appearance. Certainly I was disposed to feel some confidence in the man who could keep such a creature alive at all. He was a secret-looking man, with an expression of chronic surprise stamped indelibly on his face,—surprise, perhaps, that any one should ever consult him. Or perhaps it was rather that he looked as if he had had the private ear of numberless invalid animals who had confided to him their maladies, but not the language in which to interpret them to human beings— for the furtive astonishment of his expression had a dash

of confidence in it too. He insisted on taking a hopeful view of "megrims," against all the traditions of the elders, and stole about Nancy as if he were in her secret as to the nature of her attack. He bled her, and he gave her belladonna, and predicted that the attack would not return, though here everybody was against him, and the neighbouring farmers would inquire of me cheerfully if that was the mare who had had the "megrims," and volunteer the cordial assurance that we could never be safe with her again. However, our sanguine veterinary confidentially whispered to me the history of one or two cases in which his treatment had at least been followed by intervals of years, and on his second visit, when I met him coming out from a very private interview with Nancy, looking more surprised and secret than ever, he indicated rather than expressed his astonishment to find the mare so much better, and assured me she might undertake her usual work on the following day. However, we did not venture to resume our Western tour. The farther you are from home, the worse is a collapse of plans. Dorsetshire and Devonshire are hilly countries, and the prospect of "megrims" supervening on a high Dorsetshire down, with a shattered trap and lamed horse, and a modest amount of baggage to be suddenly disposed of somehow, was so very discouraging, that we thought it better to write to a friend who was to have joined us at Lyme Regis to come instead to the New Forest, promising her an excursion or two to less distant beauties by way of compensation. Besides the New Forest, picturesque Lymington and the scenery of the Solent, Salisbury, and

Stonehenge were all well within easy reach, and as day by day the "megrims" did not recur, we began to cherish new hopes of the efficacy of that bleeding and that belladonna, in spite of the dogmatism of the books. I confess I was anxious that nothing should go wrong while the lady who now joined us remained with us. For she had been an invalid, and her nervous system might be injured by any catastrophe. Besides she had known me as a boy, and has always had a keen humour of her own, not unmixed with a satiric vein; and in the fits of impatience which fatal interruption to my plans is too apt to cause in me, she takes the liberty to make fun of me, and does not do it badly; so that I was really anxious, not only on Cecilia's account, but on our new guest's and my own, that we might have no catastrophes.

Our first long excursion was to Lymington, whence we hoped to visit Hurst Castle, and crossing the Solent, to reach the downs above Freshwater. The guide-books are severe on Hurst Castle. "The historical associations connected with this ancient stronghold are few and of little interest." But it has always had a fascination for me, for its desolate and almost insulated situation,in great storms the sea dashes well over the long, sandy spit, by which alone it is connected with the Hampshire coast, and again, from the fact that it was Charles I.'s prison for three weeks in the gloomy December which preceded his execution, and that he himself fancied that it was selected as a spot well-fitted for his assassination. So we set out for Lymington through the Forest. And as I shall hardly have another opportunity of speaking of the