fidentially to you. "She's too overbearing for me," and just
at that minute the voice of the society young lady is heard to
call the master "overbearing," and you and Nell exchange
delighted, mischievous smiles.

Now for that stiffness of yours, Esmeralda, there is a remedy, as
there is for everything but death, and you should use it
immediately, before the rigidity becomes habitual. Continue your
other exercises, but devote only about a third as much time to
them, and use the other two thirds for Delsarte movements.

First: Let your hands swing loosely from the wrist, and swing
them lifelessly to and fro. Execute the movement first with the
right hand then with the left, then with both.

Second: Let the fingers hang from the knuckles, and shake them in
the same way and in the same order.

Third: Let the forearm hang from the elbow, and proceed in like
manner.

Fourth: Let the whole arm hang from the shoulder, and swing the
arms by twisting the torso.

Execute the finger and hand movements with the arms hanging at
the side, extended sidewise, stretched above the head, thrust
straight forward, with the arms bent at right angles to them and
with the arms flung backward as far as possible. Execute the
forearm movements with the arms falling at the side, and also
with the elbow as high as the shoulder.

After you have performed these exercises for a few days, you will
begin to find it possible to make yourself limp and lifeless when
necessary, and the knowledge will be almost as valuable as the
ability to hold yourself firm and steady. You will find the
exercises in Mrs. Thompson's "Society Gymnastics," but these are
all that you will need for at least one week, especially if you
have to devote many hours to the task of persuading the society
young lady not to leave your class unto you desolate.

IX.

"Left wheel into line!" and they
wheel and obey.
_Tennyson_.

When you arrive at the school for your second class lesson,
Esmeralda, you find the dressing-room pervaded by a silence as
clearly indicative of a recent tempest as the path cloven through
a forest by a tornado. From the shelter of screens and from
retired nooks, come sounds indicative of garments doffed and
donned with abnormal celerity and severity, but never a word of
joking, and never a cry for deft-fingered Kitty's assistance, and
then, little by little, even these noises die away, and the
palace of the Sleeping Beauty co