“Now,” the teacher goes on, “we will turn to the right, singly.  Turn!  Keep up, ladies!  Keep up!  Ride straight!  To the right again!  Turn!” and back on the track, on the other side of the school, the leader in the rear, the beginners in advance, you continue until two more turns to the right replace you.

“That was all wrong,” the teacher says, cheerfully.  “You did not ride straight, and you did not ride together.  Your horses’ heads should be in line with one another, and then when you arrive at the track and turn to the right again, your distance will be correct.  Now we will have a little trot, and while you are resting afterward, you shall try the turn again.”

The society young lady, watching the scene in sulkiness, notes various faults in each rider and feels that the truly promising pupil of the class is sitting in her chair at that moment; but she says nothing of the kind, contenting herself by asking the master, with well-adjusted carelessness, if it would not be better for the teacher to speak softly.

“It gives a positive shock to the nerves to be so vehemently addressed,” she says, with the air of a Hammond advising an ignorant nurse.

“That is what he has the intention to do,” replies the other.  “It is necessary to arouse the rider’s will and not let her sleep, but if it were not, the teacher of riding, or anybody who has to give orders, orders, orders all day long, must speak from an expanded chest, with his lungs full of air, or at night he will be dumb.  The young man behind the counter who has to entreat, persuade, to beg, to be gentle, he may make his voice soft, but to speak with energy in a low tone is to strain the vocal cords and to injure the lungs permanently.  The opera singer finds to sing piano, pianissimo more wearisome than to make herself heard above a Wagner orchestra.  The orator, with everybody still and listening with countenance intent, dares not speak softly, except now and then for contrast.  In the army we have three months’ rest, and then we go to the surgeon, and he examines our throats and lungs, and sees whether or not they need any treatment.  If you go to the camp of the military this summer, you will find the young officers whom you know in the ball-room so soft and so gentle, not whispering to their men, but shouting, and the best officer will have the loudest shout.”

The society young lady remembers the stories which she has heard her father and uncles tell of that “officer’s sore throat,” which in 1861 and 1862, caused so many ludicrous incidents among the volunteer soldiery, the energetic rill master of one day being transformed into a voiceless pantomimist by the next, but, like Juliet when she spoke, she says nothing, and now the teacher once more cries, “Turn!” and then, suddenly, “Prepare to stop!  Stop!  Now look at your line!  Now two of you have your horses’ heads even!  And how many of you were riding straight?”

A dead silence gives a precisely correct answer, and again he cries, “Forward!” A repetition of the movement is demanded, and is received with cries of “This is not good, ladies!  This is not good!  We will try again by and by.  Now, prepare to change hands in file.”