y slowly and lightly, using as little force as possible. After
you can do this fairly well, begin by executing them quickly and
forcibly, then gradually retard them, and make them more gently,
until you glide at last into perfect repose. This will take time,
but the good results will appear not only in your riding, but
also in your walking and in your dancing. You and Nell might
practise these Delsarte exercises together, for no especial dress
is needed for them, and companionship will remove the danger of
the dulness which, it must be admitted, sometimes besets the
amateur, unsustained by the artist's patient energy. Before you
take another class lesson, you may have an exercise ride, in
which to practise what you have learned. "Tried to learn!" do you
say? Well, really, Esmeralda, one begins to have hopes of you!

X.

--Ye couldn't have made him a rider,
And then ye know, boys will be boys, and hosses,
--well, hosses is hosses!
_Harte_.

When you and Nell go to take your exercise ride, Esmeralda, you
must assume the air of having ridden before you were able to
walk, and of being so replete with equestrian knowledge that
the "acquisition of another detail would cause immediate
dissolution," as the Normal college girl said when asked if she
knew how to teach. You must insist on having a certain horse, no
matter ho much inconvenience it may create, and, if possible, you
should order him twenty-four hours in advance, stipulating that
nobody shall mount him in the interval, and, while waiting for
him to be brought from the stable, you should proclaim that he is
a wonderfully spirited, not to say vicious, creature, but that
you are not in the smallest degree afraid of him. You should pick
up your reins with easy grace, and having twisted them into a
hopeless snarl, should explain to any spectator who may presume
to smile that one "very soon forgets the little things, you know,
but they will come back in a little while."

Having started, you must choose between steadily trotting or
rapidly cantering, absolutely regardless of the rights or wishes
of any one else, or else you must hold your horse to a spiritless
crawl, carefully keeping him in such a position as to prevent
anybody else from outspeeding you. If you were a man, you would
feel it incumbent on you to entreat your master to permit you to
change horses with him, and would give him certain valuable
information, derived