The leader, turning at one corner of the school, makes a line almost like a reversed “s” to the corner diagonally opposite, and comes back to the track on the left hand, the others straggling after with about as much precision and grace as Jill followed Jack down the hill; but, before they are fairly aware how very ill they have performed the manoeuvre, they perceive that their teacher not only aimed at having them learn how to turn to the left at each corner, but also at giving himself an opportunity to make remarks about their feet and the position thereof, and at the end of five minutes each girl feels as if she were a centipede, and you, Esmeralda, secretly wonder whether something in the way of mucilage of thumb-tacks might not be used to keep your own riding boots close to the saddle.  “And don’t let your left foot swing,” says the teacher in closing his exhortations; “hold it perfectly steady!  Now change hands in file, and come back to the track on the right again, and we will have a little trot.”

“And before you begin,” lectures the master, “I will tell you something.  The faster you go, after once you know how to stay in the saddle, the better for you, the better for your horse.  You see the great steamer crossing the ocean when under full headway, and she can turn how this way and now that, with the least little touch of the rudder, but when she is creeping, creeping through the narrow channel, she must have a strong, sure hand at the helm, and when she is coming up to her wharf, easy, easy, she must swing in a wide circle.  That is why my word to you is always ‘Forward!  Forward!’ and again, ‘Forward!’ There is a scientific reason underlying this, if you care to know it.  When you go fast, neither you nor the horse has time to feel the pressure of the atmosphere from above, and that is why it seems as if you were flying, and he is happy and exhilarated as well as you.  You will see the tame horse in the paddock gallop about for his pleasure, and the wild horse on the prairie will start and run for miles in mere sportiveness.  So, if you want to have pleasure on horseback, ‘Forward!’”

While the little trot is going on, the society young lady improves the shining hour by asking the master “if he does not think it cruel to make a poor horse go just as fast as it can,” to which he replies that the horse will desire to go quite as long as she can or will, whereupon she withdraws into the cave of sulkiness again, but brightens perceptibly as you dismount and join her.

“You do look so funny, Esmeralda,” she begins.  “Your feet do seem positively immense, as the teacher said.”

“Pardon me; I said not that,” gently interposes the teacher; “only that they looked too big, bigger than they are, when she turns them outward.”

“And you do sit very much on one side,” she continues to Versatilia:  “and your crimps are quite flat, my dear,” to the beauty.

“Never mind; they aren’t fastened on with a safety pin,” retorts the beauty, plucking up spirit, unexpectedly.