answer. "Ah, well," he says, a little regretfully,
"don't forget, then. Hold on with your right knee and sit down
for the canter."

What shall you do by way of exercise before Monday? Practise all
the old movements, a little of each one at a time, and take two
lengths of ribbon as wide as an ordinary rein, or, better still,
two leather straps, and fasten one to the knobs on the two sides
of a door and run the other through the keyhole. Call the knob
straps the snaffle reins, and the keyhole straps the curb, and,
sitting near enough to let them lie in your lap, practice picking
them up and adjusting them with your eyes shut. When you can do
it quickly and neatly, try and see with how little exertion you
can sway the door to left and right, and then practice holding
these dummy reins while standing on one foot and executing the
movement used in trotting. If the door move by a hair's breadth,
it will show you that you are pulling too much, and you must
remember that your hold on your horse's mouth gives you greater
leverage than you have on the door, and then, perhaps, you will
pity the poor beast a little now and then.

What is that? Your master treated you as if you were an ignorant
girl? So you are, dear, and even if you were not, if you knew all
that there is in all the books, you might still be a bad
horsewoman, because you might now know enough to use your
knowledge. You don't care, and you feel very well, and are very
glad that you went? Of course, that is the invariable cry! And
you mean to take some more lessons if you find that you really
need them? Then leave your skirt in the dressing-room locker! You
will come back from your ride a wiser, but not a sadder, girl.
One cannot be sad on horseback.

V.

--Pad, pad, pad! Like a thing that was mad,
My chestnut broke away.
_Thornbury_.

Esmeralda was puzzled when she returned from her first riding
party. In the morning, looking very pretty in her borrowed riding
habit, her English hat with the hunting guard made necessary by
the Back Bay breezes, her brown gauntlets, and the one scarlet
carnation in her button-hole, she drove to the riding-school,
where she had agreed to meet Theodore and her other friends, not
like Mrs. Gilpin, lest all should say that she was proud, but
because her master had promised to lend her one of the school
horses, to put her ion the saddle and to adjust her stirrup, and
because she secretly felt that she w