hat it seems as if he would have no difficulty in performing it
in any passageway through which his horse could walk in a
straight line. The whole class gazes enviously, to be brought to
the proper frame of mind by a sharp expostulatory fire of: "Keep
your distance! Forward!" with about four times as many warnings
addressed to the society young lady as to all the others; and
then suddenly, unexpectedly, the clock strikes and the lesson is
over.

The society young lady dresses herself with much precision and
deliberation, and announces that she will never, no, never! never
so long as she lives, come again; and in spite of Nell's attempts
to quiet her, she repeats the statement in the reception room, in
the master's hearing, aiming it straight at his quiet countenance.

"No?" he says, not so much disturbed as she could desire. "You
should not despair, you will learn in time."

"I don't despair," she answers; "but I know something, and I will
not be treated as if I knew nothing."

"An, you know something," he repeats, in an interested way. "But
what you do not know, my young lady, is how little that something
is! This is a school; you came here to be taught. I will not
cheat you by not teaching you."

"And it is no way to teach! Three men ordering a class at once!"

"Ah, it is 'no way to teach'! Now, it is I who am taking a lesson
from you. I am greatly obliged, but I must keep to my own old
way. It may be wrong--for you, my young lady--but it has made
soldiers to ride, and little girls, and other young ladies, and I
am content. And these others? Are they not coming any more?"

And every one of those cowardly girls huddles away behind you,
Esmeralda, and leaves you to stammer, "Y-yes, sir, but you do
s-scold a little hard."

"That," says the master, "is my bog voice to make the horses
mind, and to make sure that you hear it. And I told you the other
day that I spoke for your good, not for my own. If I should say
every time I want trotting, 'My dear and much respected beautiful
young ladies, please to trot,' how much would you learn in a
morning?"

"We are ladies," says the society young lady, "and we should be
treated as ladies."

"And you--or these others, since you retire--are my pupils,
and shall be treated as my pupils," he says with a courtly bow
and a "Good morning," and you go away trying to persuade the
society young lady to reconsider.

"Not that I care much whether she does or not," Nell says
con