This is not a physician’s prescription, but is hat of a horseman who for years led the best riding class in Boston, and it is asserted that nobody was ever known to be dissatisfied with its effects.  Muffle yourself warmly, Esmeralda, and hasten home, for nothing is easier than to catch cold after riding.  Air your frock and cloak before an open fire to volatilize the slight ammoniacal scent which they must inevitably contract in the locker, and then be as good to yourself as the hostler will be to your poor horse.  That is to say, give yourself a sponge bath in hot water, with a dash of Sarg’s soap and almond meal in it, rubbing dry with a Turkish towel, and then dress and go down to dinner.

Looking at your glowing face and shining eyes, your father will tell your mother that she should have gone also, but when he marks the havoc which you make with the substantial part of the meal, and sees that your appetite for dessert is twice as good as usual, he will reflect upon his butcher’s and grocer’s bills, and, considering what they would be with provision to make for two such voracious creatures, he will say, “No, Esmeralda, don’t take your mother!”

III.

Up into the saddle,
Lithe and light, vaulting she perched.
Hayne.

And you still think, Esmeralda, that three lessons will be enough to make you a horse woman, and that by next Monday you will be able to join the road party, and witch the world with your accomplishments?

Very well, array yourself for conquest and come to the school.  Talk is cheap, according to a proverb more common than elegant; but it is sinful to waste the cheapest of things.  While you dress, you will meditate upon the sensation which it is your intention to make in the ring, and upon the humiliation which you will heap upon your riding master by showing wonderful ability to rise in the saddle.  Although not quite ready to assert ability to ride hour after hour like a mounted policeman, you feel certain that you could ride as gracefully as he, and perhaps you are right, for official position does not confer wisdom in equitation.  To say nothing of policemen, it is not many seasons since an ambitious member of the governor’s staff presented himself before a riding master to “take a lesson, just to get used to it, you know; got to review some regiments at Framingham tomorrow.”  And when, after some trouble, he had been landed in the saddle, never a strap had he, and long before his lesson hour was finished, he was a spectacle to make a Prussian sentinel giggle while on duty.

And for your further encouragement, Esmeralda, know that it is but a few years ago that a riding master, in answer to a rebellious pupil who defended some sin against Baucher with, “Mr. —­of the governor’s staff always does so,” retorted, “There is just one man on the governor’s staff who can ride, and I taught him; and if he had ridden like that !” An awful silence expressed so many painful possibilities that the pupil was meek and humble ever after, and yet it was not written in any newspaper that any of those ignorant colonels were thrown from their saddles in public, nor did the strapless gentleman furnish amusement to civilian or soldier by rolling on the grass at Framingham.