e another that "that man
was abusing his horse, poor thing."

The car glided off, and Versatilia turned to look at it; her
horse stumbled slightly, jerking her wrists sharply, and but for
the cavalryman's quick shifting of the reins to his right hand
and his strong grasp of her reins with his left, she might have
been in danger.

"Never look back," lectured the master. Esmeralda was his pupil,
and he would have taken the whole centennial quadrille and all
the cabinet ladies to point his moral, had he seen them making
equestrian blunders. "Where your horse has been, where, he is, is
the past. Look to the future, straight before you."

"The cavalryman looked back just now," Esmeralda ventured to say.

"Yes, but he turned his horse very slightly to do it, and he may
do almost anything because he has a perfect seat, and is a good
horseman."

"Suppose I hear something or somebody coming up behind me?"

"If it have any intelligence, it will not hurt you. If it have
none, looking will do you no good. Turn out to the right as far
as you can and look to the front harder than ever, so as to be
ready to guide your horse and to avoid any obstacles in case he
should start to run. What is the trouble with the ladies now?"

"O, dear!" cried the beauty to the society young lady, "your
horse."

"What's the matter with him?" asked the other, still very stately
and not turning.

"Oh! The dreadful creature has caught his tail on my horse's
bit," said the beauty.

"Then you'd better take your horse's bit away," retorted the
other. "My horse's eyes are not at that end of him, and he can't
be expected to look at his tail."

"And you may be kicked," added the Texan. "Check him a little;
there! We ought not to be so close together, and we ought to be
moving a little, I think. Shall we trot again?"

Everybody assented, the cavalryman and Versatilia set off, the
others followed as best they might, the beauty "going to pieces"
in a minute or two, according to the master, the society young
lady stiffening visibly, losing the cadence of the trot very
soon, but making no outcry as she was tossed about uncomfortably,
and not bending her head to look at her reins, as Versatilia did.

"There's the advantage of training in other things," said the
master. "She's a good dancer and a good amateur actress, and she
is controlling herself as she would on a ballroom floor, and
remembering the spectators as she would on the stage. She's no
ri