ck!"

Sit down in the saddle, Esmeralda! Lean back a little, bring your
left knee up against the pommel, keeping the lower part of the
leg close against the saddle; keep your right knee in place and
your right foot and the lower part of your right leg close to the
saddled; guide your horse, but do not otherwise exert yourself.
How do you like it? Delightful? Yes, with a good horse it is as
delightful as sitting in a rocking-chair, but, if you were a
rider of experience, you would not allow your horse to enter upon
the gait without permission, but would bring him back to the trot
by slightly pulling first the left rein and then the right, a
movement which is called sawing the mouth. The poor creature is
really not in fault. He heard the cluck given by that complacent-
looking man, trotting slowly about, and not knowing how to use
his reins and knees in order to go faster, and he said to
himself: "She is tired of trotting and wants a rest; so do I,"
and away he went. If you had been trying to rise, you might have
been thrown, for the greatest danger that you will encounter in
the school comes from rising while the horse is at a canter. The
cadence of the motion is triple, instead of in common time like
that of the trot, and you will soon distinguish the difference,
but eschew cantering at first. If you once become addicted to it,
you will never learn to trot, or even to walk well.

Having had your little warning against clucking, perhaps you
will now sympathize with the indignant Englishwoman who, having
been almost unseated by a similar mischance, responded, when
the clucking cause thereof rode up to say that he was sorry
that her horse should behave so: "It wasn't the horse that was
in fault, sir; it was a donkey." But now, try a round or two
more of trotting, then guide your horse carefully about the ring
two or three times, bring him up to the mounting-stand, dismount,
and go to the dressing-room. You are rather warm, but not in
the least tired, and you have had "such a good time," as you
enthusiastically explain to everybody who will listen to you, but
as there is much merry chatter going on from behind screens, and
as it is all to the same effect, nobody pays much attention, and
if you were cross and complaining, everybody would laugh at you.
A riding-school is a place from which every woman issues better
contented than she entered, and there is no sympathy for
grumblers.

Remember to be careful about your wra