e
left, and go straight across the school. Straight! Fix your eye
on something when you start, and ride at it with as much
determination as if it were a fence; now you turn to the right
again and go forward. Have you read Delsarte?"

No, you murmur to yourself, you have not read Delsarte, and, if
you had, you do not believe that you could remember it or
anything else just at present. What an endless string of
directions! You wish that there was another pupil with you to
take the burden of a few of them! You wish you were--oh!
Anywhere. This is your obedience, is it Esmeralda? Well, you
don't care! This is dull! Your horse thinks so, too. He gently
tries the reins, and, finding that you offer no resistance, he
decides to take a little exercise, and starts off at a canter,
keeping away from the wall most piously, avoiding the corners as
if some Hector might be in ambuscade there to catch and tame him,
and rushing on faster and faster, as you do nothing in particular
to stop him.

"Lean to the right," cries the master, and you obey, but the
horse continues his canter, almost a gallop now, when suddenly
your wits return to you, you draw back first the right hand and
then the left, he begins to trot, and by some miracle you begin
to rise, and continue to do it, you do not know exactly how,
feeling a delight in it, an exhilarating, exultant sensation as
if flying. "Keep your right leg close to the saddle below the
knee and turn your toes in!" You obey, and even remember to press
your left knee to the saddle also and to keep your heel down.
"Don't rise to the left! Rise straight! Your horse is circling to
the right, and you must lean to the right to rise straight! Take
him into the corners so that he will move more on a straight
line, and you can rise straight and be as much at ease as if on
the road. Whoa! Now, don't change your position, but look at
yourself! You did not shorten your reins when you began to trot,
and, if your horse had stumbled, you could not have aided him to
regain his balance. Had you shortened them properly, you could,
by sitting down, using your leg and whip lightly and turning your
hands toward your body, have brought him down to a walk without
hurling yourself forward against the pommel in that fashion. Now,
adjust yourself and your reins, and start forward once more," and
you obey, and are beginning to flatter yourself that your master
does not know that your canter was accidental, when he warns