should not please his wife, and Mrs. Cooke remarked to Farrar and me that
her husband was old enough to know better, and too old to be taught. She
loved him devotedly and showed it in a hundred ways, but she was
absolutely incapable of dissimulation.

Thanks to Mrs. Cooke, our visit to Mohair was a pleasant one. We were
able in many ways to help in the arrangements, especially Farrar, who had
charge of decorating the grounds. We saw but little of Mr. Cooke and the
Celebrity.

The arrival of the Ten was an event of importance, and occurred the day
of the dance. I shall treat the Ten as a whole because they did not
materially differ from one another in dress or habits or ambition or
general usefulness on this earth. It is true that Mr. Cooke had been
able to make delicate distinctions between them for the aid of the
Celebrity, but such distinctions were beyond me, and the power to make
them lay only in a long and careful study of the species which I could
not afford to give. Likewise the life of any one of the Ten was the life
of all, and might be truthfully represented by a single year, since each
year was exactly like the preceding. The ordinary year, as is
well-known, begins on the first of January. But theirs was not the
ordinary year, nor the Church year, nor the fiscal year. Theirs began in
the Fall with the New York Horse Show. And I am of the opinion, though
open to correction, that they dated from the first Horse Show instead of
from the birth of Christ. It is certain that they were much better
versed in the history of the Association than in that of the Union, in
the biography of Excelsior rather than that of Lincoln. The Dog Show was
another event to which they looked forward, when they migrated to New
York and put up at the country places of their friends. But why go
farther?