at she "liked it
very well."

"I should have them reset," says the former speaker. "Like mine,
you know; light and airy. Deah me, I usedn't to care for
diamonds, and now I'm puffectly infatooated with them, don't you
know! My!" she screams, catching sight of a church clock, and,
relapsing into her everyday speech: "Half-past four! And I am due
at"--[An awkward pause.] "I promised to return at four!"

There is no more talk about diamonds, but a hurried scramble to
dress, an a precipitate departure, after which one of the other
ladies is heard to say very distinctly: "I remember that girl as
a pupil when I was teaching in a public school, and I know all
about her. Salary, four dollars a week. Diamonds!"

"She registered at the desk as Mrs. Something," rejoins the
other. "She only came in for one ride, and so they gave her a
horse without looking up her reference, but one of the masters
knew her real name. Poor little goosey! She has simply spoiled
her chance of ever becoming a regular pupil, no matter how much
she may desire it. No riding master will give lessons to a person
who behaves so. He would lose more than he gained by it, no
matter how long she took lessons. And they know everybody in a
riding-school, although they won't gossip. I'd as soon try to
cheat a Pinkerton agency."

"I know one thing," Nell says, as you walk homeward: "I'm going
to take an exercise ride between every two lessons, and I'm going
to ride a new horse every time, if I can get him, and I'm going
to do what I'm told, and I shall not stop trotting at the next
lesson, even if I feel as if I should drop out of the saddle.
I've learned so much from an exercise ride."

XI.

Ride as though you were flying.
_Mrs. Norton_.

"Cross," Esmeralda? Why? Because having had seven lessons of
various sorts, and two rides, you do not feel yourself to be a
brilliant horsewoman? Because you cannot trot more than half a
mile, and because you cannot flatter yourself that it would be
prudent for you to imitate your favorite English heroines, and to
order your horse brought around to the hall door for a solitary
morning canter? And you really think that you do well to be
angry, and that, had your teacher been as discreet and as
entirely admirable as you feel yourself to be, you would be more
skilful and better informed?

Very well, continue to think so, but pray do not flatter yourself
that your mental attitude has the very smallest fr