"You see how men are till we put a spike collar and chain on 'em. When Henrietta declared herself Alonzo read the riot act and declared marital law. But there was Henrietta with the collar and chain and pretty soon Lon was saying: 'You're quite right, Pettikins, and you ought to have the thanks of the community for showing our ladies how to dress rationally on horseback. It's not only sensible and safe but it's modest--a plain pair of riding breeches, no coquetry, no frills, nothing but stern utility--of course I agree.'
"'I hoped you would, darling,' says Henrietta. She went to Miss Gunslaugh and had her make the costume, being one who rarely does things by halves. It was of blue velvet corduroy, with a fetching little bolero jacket, and the things themselves were fitted, if you know what I mean. And stern utility! That suit with its rosettes and bows and frogs and braid had about the same stern utility as those pretty little tin tongs that come on top of a box of candy--ever see anybody use one of those? When Henrietta got dressed for her first ride and had put on the Cuban Pink Face Balm she looked like one of the gypsy chorus in the Bohemian Girl opera.
"Alonzo gulped several times in rapid succession when he saw her, but the little man never starts anything he don't aim to finish, and it was too late to start it then. Henrietta brazened her way through Main Street and out to the country club and back, and next day she put them on again so Otto Hirsch, of the E-light Studio, could come up and take her standing by the horse out in front of the Price mansion. Then they was laid away until the Grand Annual Masquerade Ball of the Order of the Eastern Star, which is a kind of hen Masons, when she again gave us a flash of what New York society ladies was riding their horse in. As a matter of fact, Henrietta hates a horse like a rattlesnake, but she had done her pioneer work for once and all.
"Every one was now laughing and sneering at the old-fashioned divided skirt with which woman had endangered her life on a horse, and wondering how they had endured the clumsy things so long; and come spring all the prominent young society buds and younger matrons of the most exclusive set who could stay on a horse at all was getting theirs ready for the approaching season, Red Gap being like London in having its gayest season in the summer, when people can get out more. Even Mis' Judge Ballard fell for it, though hers was made of severe black with a long coat. She looked exactly like that Methodist minister, the old one, that we had three years ago.