Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/201

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RUS IN URBE.
193

with his bridle, sailing away with his hind legs under your stirrup-irons, free, yet collected, so that you could let him out at speed, or have him back in a canter within half a dozen strides; pat him lovingly just where the hair turns on his glossy neck like a knot in polished wood-work, and while he bends to meet the caress, and bounds to acknowledge it, tell me that dancing is the poetry of motion if you dare!

Should it not be the London season—and I am of opinion that the rus in urbe is more enjoyable to both of us at the "dead time of year" than during the three fashionable months—do not, therefore, feel alarmed that you will have the ride to yourself, or that if you come to grief there will be nobody to pick you up! Here you will meet some Life-Guardsman "taking the nonsense" out of a charger he hates; there some fair girl, trim, of waist, blue of habit, and golden of