Of these details the first is that the sateen lining should be black. Gay colors are very pretty, but soon spoiled by perspiration, and white, the most fitting lining for a lady's ordinary frock, is unsuitable for a habit, since one long, warm ride may convert it into something very untidy of aspect. This lining, of which all the seams should be turned toward the outside, should end at the belt line, and between it and the cloth outside should be a layer of canvas, cut and shaped as carefully as possible, and the whalebones, each in its covering, should be sewed between the canvas and the sateen. If a waistcoat be worn, it should have a double sateen back with canvas interlining, and may be high in the throat or made with a step collar like that of the waist. The cuffs are simply indicated by stitching and are buttoned on the outside of the sleeve with two or three buttons. Simulated waistcoats, basted firmly to the shoulder seams and under-arm seams of the waist, and cut high to the throat with an officer collar, are liked by ladies with a taste for variety, and are not expensive, as but for a small quantity of material is required for each one. They are fastened by small hooks except in those parts shown by the openings, and on these flat or globular pearl buttons are used.
When a step collar and a man's tie are worn, the ordinary high collar and chemisette, sold for thirty-eight cents, takes the place of the straight linen band worn with the habit high in the throat, and the proper tie is the white silk scarf fastened in a four-in-hand knot, and, if you be wise, Esmeralda you will buy this at a good shop, and pay two dollars and a quarter for it, rather than to pay less and repent ever after. Some girls wear white lawn evening ties, but they are really out of place in the saddle, in which one is supposed to be in morning dress. Wear the loosest of collars and cuffs, and fasten the latter to your habit sleeves with safety pins. The belts of your habit skirt and waist should also be pinned together at the back, at the sides, and the front, unless your tailor has fitted them with hooks and eyes, and if you be a provident young person, you will tuck away a few more safety pins, a hairpin or two, half a row of "the most common pin of North America," and a quarter-ounce flash of cologne, in one of the little leather change pouches, and put it either in your habit pocket or your saddle pocket. Sometimes, after a dusty ride of an hour or two, a five-minute halt under the trees by the roadside, gives opportunity to remove the dust from the face and to cool the hands, and the cologne is much better than the handkerchief "dipped in the pellucid waters of a rippling brook," a la novelist, for the pellucid brook of Massachusetts is very likely to run past a leather factory, in which case its waters are anything but agreeable. Whether or not your habit shall have a pocket is a matter of choice. If it have one, it should be small and should be on the left side, just beyond the three flat buttons which fasten the front breadth and side breadth of your habit at the waist. When thus placed, you can easily reach it with either hand.
Fitting the habit over the knee is a feat not to be effected by an amateur without a pattern, and the proper slope and adjustment of the breadths come by art, not chance; but Harper's Bazaar patterns are easily obtained by mail. The best tailors adjust the skirt while the wearer sits on a side saddle, and there is no really good substitute for this, for, although one my guess fairly well at the fir of the knee, nothing but actual trial will show whether or not, when in the saddle, the left side of the skirt hangs perfectly straight, concealing the right side, and leaving the horse's body visible below it. When your skirt is finished, no matter if it be made by the very best of tailors, wear it once in the school before you appear on the road with it, and, looking in the mirror, view it "with a crocket's eye," as the little boy said when he appeared on the school platform as an example of the advantages of the wonderful merits of oral instruction.
An elastic strap about a quarter of a yard long should be sewed half way between the curved knee seam and the hem, and should be slipped over the right toe before mounting, and a second strap, for the left heel, should be sewed on the last seam on the under side of the habit, to be adjusted after the foot is placed in the stirrup. The result of this cutting and arrangement is the straight, simple, modern habit which is so great a change from the riding dress of half a century ago, with its full skirt which nearly swept the ground. The short skirt first appears in the English novel in "Guy Livingstone," and is worn by the severe and upright Lady Alice, the dame who hesitated not to snub Florence Bellasis, when snubbing was needful, and who was a mighty huntress. Now everybody wears it, and the full skirts are seen nowhere except in the riding-school dressing-rooms, where they yet linger because they may be worn by anybody, whereas the plain skirts fits but one person. It seems odd that so many years were required to discover that a short skirt, held in place by a strap placed over the right toe and another slipped over the left heel, really protected the feet more than yards of loosely floating cloth, but did not steam and electricity wait for centuries? Since the new style was generally adopted, Englishwomen allow themselves the luxury of five or six habits, instead of the one or two formerly considered sufficient, but each one is worn for several years. When the extravagant wife, in Mrs. Alexander's "A Crooked Path," suggests that she may soon want a new habit, her husband asks indignantly, "Did I not give you one two years ago?"
The trousers may mach the habit or may be of stockinet, or the imported cashmere tights may be worn. Women who are not fat and whose muscles are hard, may choose whichsoever one of these pleases them, but fat women, and women whose flesh is not too solid, must wear thick trousers, and would better have them lined with buckskin, unless they would be transformed into what Sairey would call "a mask of bruiges," and would frequent remark to Mrs. Harris that such was what she expected. Trousers with gaiter fastenings below the knee are preferred by some women who put not their faith in straps alone, and knee-breeches are liked by some, but to wear knee breeches means to pay fifteen dollars for long riding-boots, instead of the modest seven or eight dollars which suffice to buy ordinary Balmoral boots. Gaiters must button on the left side of each leg, and trouser straps may be sewed on one side and buttoned on the other, instead of being buttoned on both sides as men's are. Tailors sometimes insist on two buttons, but as a woman does not wear her trousers except with the strap, it is not difficult to see why she needs to be able to remove it. The best material for the strap is thick soft kid, or thin leather lined with cloth. The thick, rubber strap used by some tailors is dangerous, sometimes preventing the rider from placing her foot in the stirrup, sometimes making her lose it at a critical moment. Whether breeches, tights, or trousers are worn, they must be loose at the knee, or trotting will be impossible, and the rider will feel as if bound to the second pommel, and will sometimes be unable to rise at all.
As to gloves, the choice lies between the warm antelope skin mousquetaires at two dollars a pair, and the tan-colored kid gauntlets at the same price. The former are most comfortable for winter, the latter for summer, and neither can be too large. Nobody was ever ordered out for execution for wearing black gloves, although they are unusual, and now and then one sees a woman, whose soul is set on novelty, gorgeous in yellow cavalry gauntlets, or even with white dragoon gauntlets, making her look like a badly focused photograph.
Lastly, as to the hat. What shall it be, Esmeralda?
No tuft of grass-green plumes for you, like Queen Guinevere's, nor yet the free flowing feather to be seen in so many beautiful old French pictures, nor the plumed hat which "my sweet Mistress Ann Dacre" wore when Constance Sherwood's loving eyes first fell upon her, but the simple jockey cap, exactly matching your habit, and costing two dollars and a half or three dollars; the Derby cap for the same price or a little more; or, best of all, the English or the American silk hat, as universally suitable as a black silk frock was in the good old times when Mrs. Rutherford Birchard Hayes was in the White House. The English Henry Heath hat at seven or eight dollars, with its velvet forehead piece and its band of soft, rough silk, stays in place better than any other, but it is too heavy for comfort. If you can have an American hatter remodel it, making it weigh half a pound less, it will be perfection, always provided that he does not, as he assuredly will unless you forbid it, throw away the soft, rough band, which keeps the hat in place, and substitute one of the American smooth bands, designed to slip off without ruffling the hair, and doing it instantly, the moment that a breeze touches the brim of the hat. A hunting guard, fastened at the back of the hat brim and between two habit buttons is better than an elastic caught under the braids of your hair, for when an elastic does not snap outright, it is always trying to do so, and in the effort holds the hat so tightly on the head so as sometimes to give actual pain. The hunting guard is no restraint at all unless the hat flies off, in which case it keeps it from following the example of John Gilpin's, but with the Henry Heath lining, your hat is perfectly secure in anything from a Texas Norther to a New England east wind. If you follow London example, and wear a straw hat for morning rides, sew a piece of white velvet on the inner side of the band, and your forehead will not be marked.
Arrayed after these suggestions, Esmeralda, you will be inconspicuous, and that is the general aim of the true lady's riding dress, with the exception of those worn by German princesses, when, at a review, they lead the regiments which they command. Then, their habits may be frogged and braided with gold, or they may fire the air in habit and hat of white and scarlet, the regimental colors, as the Empress of Germany did the other day. If you were sure of riding as these royal ladies do, perhaps even white and scarlet might be permitted to you, but can you fancy yourself, Esmeralda, sweeping across a parade ground with a thousand horsemen behind you, and ready to salute your sovereign and commander-in-chief at the right moment, and to go forward with as much precision as if you, too, were one of those magnificently drilled machines brought into being by the man of blood and iron?