After a little, the master proposed a trot up the hill, and instructed Esmeralda to lean forward as her horse climbed upward, “If you should have to trot down hill, lean back a little, and keep your reins short,” he said.

The lawyer and the society young lady, essaying to descend the next hill brilliantly, barely escaped going over their horses’ heads, and all four ladies were glad when they perceived that they were going homeward.

“I like it,” Esmeralda said to the master, “but I wish I knew more, and I’m going to learn, and I see now that three lessons isn’t enough, even for a beginning.”

“I knew a girl who took seventeen lessons and then was thrown,” said the society young lady.  “Native ability is better than teaching.  I don’t believe any master could make a rider of you, Esmeralda.”

“A good teacher can make a rider out of anyone who will study,” said the master, to whom she looked for approval.  “As for seventeen lessons, they are better than seven, of course, but they are not much, after all.  How many dancing lessons, music lessons, elocution lessons have you taken?  More than seventeen?  I thought so.  Here’s a railroad bridge, but no train coming.  Had one been approaching, and had there been no chance to cross it before it came, I should have made you turn Ronald the other way, Miss Esmeralda, so that if he ran he would run out of what he thinks is danger, and not into it.  And now for an easy little trot home.”

An easy little trot it was, and Esmeralda, left at her own door, where a groom waited to take her horse to the stable, was happy, but puzzled.  “Theodore,” she cried, as soon as he appeared in the evening, “did you ask the master to go with us?  He treated me just as he does in school.”

“Yes, I did,” said Theodore boldly.  “I was afraid to take charge of you alone.  That was a ‘road lesson.’”

“You—­you—­exasperating thing!” cried Esmeralda.  “But then, you were sensible.”

“That’s tautology,” said Theodore.

VI.

A solitary horseman might have been seen.
G.P.R.  James.

And so you are feeling very meek after your road lesson and your runaway, Esmeralda, and are a perfect Uriah Heep for ’umbleness, and are, henceforth and forever, going to believe every syllable that your master utters, and to obey every command the instant that it is given, and—­there, that will do!  And you are going to take one private lesson so as to learn a few little things before you display your progress before any other pupils again?  One private lesson!  Did your master advise it?  No-no, but he consented to give it, when you had persuaded him that it would be best for you?  When you had persuaded him?  Behold the American pupil’s definition of obedience:  to follow commands dictated by herself!  However, there is no use in trying to eradicate the ideas bequeathed and fostered by a hundred years of national self-government, so go to the school at the hour when no other pupils are expected.