mines our throats
and lungs, and sees whether or not they need any treatment. If
you go to the camp of the military this summer, you will find the
young officers whom you know in the ball-room so soft and so
gentle, not whispering to their men, but shouting, and the best
officer will have the loudest shout."

The society young lady remembers the stories which she has heard
her father and uncles tell of that "officer's sore throat," which
in 1861 and 1862, caused so many ludicrous incidents among the
volunteer soldiery, the energetic rill master of one day being
transformed into a voiceless pantomimist by the next, but, like
Juliet when she spoke, she says nothing, and now the teacher once
more cries, "Turn!" and then, suddenly, "Prepare to stop! Stop!
Now look at your line! Now two of you have your horses' heads
even! And how many of you were riding straight?"

A dead silence gives a precisely correct answer, and again he
cries, "Forward!" A repetition of the movement is demanded, and
is received with cries of "This is not good, ladies! This is not
good! We will try again by and by. Now, prepare to change hands
in file."

The leader, turning at one corner of the school, makes a line
almost like a reversed "s" to the corner diagonally opposite, and
comes back to the track on the left hand, the others straggling
after with about as much precision and grace as Jill followed
Jack down the hill; but, before they are fairly aware how very
ill they have performed the manoeuvre, they perceive that their
teacher not only aimed at having them learn how to turn to the
left at each corner, but also at giving himself an opportunity to
make remarks about their feet and the position thereof, and at
the end of five minutes each girl feels as if she were a
centipede, and you, Esmeralda, secretly wonder whether something
in the way of mucilage of thumb-tacks might not be used to keep
your own riding boots close to the saddle. "And don't let your
left foot swing," says the teacher in closing his exhortations;
"hold it perfectly steady! Now change hands in file, and come
back to the track on the right again, and we will have a little
trot."

"And before you begin," lectures the master, "I will tell you
something. The faster you go, after once you know how to stay in
the saddle, the better for you, the better for your horse. You
see the great steamer crossing the ocean when under full headway,
and she can turn how this way and now t