uld not be more quiet. No girl
stirs from her lurking-place, until our yourself issue from your
pet corner, and then Nell, a warning finger on her lip,
noiselessly emerges from hers, and you go into the reception room
together, and she explains to you that, despite her announcement
that she would never come again, the society young lady has
appeared, and has announced her intention to defend what she
grandly terms her position as a lady.

"And the master will think us, her associates, as unruly as she
is!" Nell almost sobs. "If I were he, I would send the whole
class home, there!" But the other girls now enter, each
magnificently polite to the others, and the file of nine begins
its journey along the wall, attended as before, the society young
lady taking great pains about distance, and really doing very
well, but the beauty sitting with calm negligence which soon
brings a volley of remonstrance from both teachers, who address
her much after the fashion of Sydney Smith's saying, "You are on
the high road to ruin the moment you think yourself rich enough
to be careless."

"You must not keep your whip in contact with your horse's
shoulder all the time," lectured one of the teachers, "if you do,
you have no means of urging him to go forward a little faster.
Keep it pressed against the saddle, not slanting outward or
backward. When you use it, do it without relaxing your hold upon
the reins, for if, by any mischance, your horse should start
quickly, you will need it. Forward, ladies, forward! don't stop
in the corners! Use your whips a very little, just as you begin
to turn! Miss Esmeralda, keep to the wall! No, no! Don't keep to
the wall by having your left rein shorter than your right! They
should be precisely even."

"As you approach the corner," says the other teacher quietly,
speaking to you alone, "carry your right hand a little nearer to
your left without bending your wrist, so that your rein will just
touch your horse's neck on the right side. That will keep his
head straight."

"But he seems determined to go to the right," you object.

"That is because your right rein is too short now. While we are
going down the long side of the school, make the reins precisely
even. Now, lay the right rein on his neck, use your whip, and
touch him with your heel to make him go on; bend your right wrist
to turn him, use your whip once more, and go on again!"

"Forward, Miss Esmeralda, forward!" cries the other teacher.