that superior being at my heels calling, as he found breath, for me to
stop, which I did at last and left him in the hands of Peter, half dead
at his hotel, where he will be laid out, with all his marvelous
masculine virtues, for a week at least. Now do not waste your arguments
on these prigs from Union College. Take each, in turn, the ten-miles'
circuit on 'Old Boney' and they'll have no breath left to prate of
woman's inferiority. You might argue with them all day, and you could
not make them feel so small as I made that popinjay feel in one hour. I
knew 'Old Boney' would keep up with me, if he died for it, and that my
escort could neither stop nor dismount, except by throwing himself from
the saddle."

"Oh, Madge!" I exclaimed; "what will you say when he meets you again?"

"If he complains, I will say 'the next time you ride see that you have a
curb bit before starting.' Surely, a man ought to know what is necessary
to manage a horse, and not expect a woman to tell him."

Our lives were still further varied and intensified by the usual number
of flirtations, so called, more or less lasting or evanescent, from all
of which I emerged, as from my religious experiences, in a more rational
frame of mind. We had been too much in the society of boys and young
gentlemen, and knew too well their real character, to idealize the sex
in general. In addition to our own observations, we had the advantage
of our brother-in-law's wisdom. Wishing to save us as long as possible
from all matrimonial entanglements, he was continually unveiling those
with whom he associated, and so critically portraying their intellectual
and moral condition that it was quite impossible, in our most worshipful
moods, to make gods of any of the sons of Adam.