“It makes one think of a circus picture,” he says; “and, Miss Esmeralda, don’t hold your whip with the lash pointing outward, to tickle Miss Nell’s horse, and to make you look like an American Mr. Briggs ’going to take a run with the Myopias, don’t you know.’  Isn’t this a pretty horse?”

“Well, I don’t know,” you say frankly; “I’m no judge.  I don’t know anything about a horse.”

For once your master loses his self-possession, and stares unreservedly.  “Child,” he says, “I never, never before saw anybody in this ring who didn’t know all about a horse.”

“Well, but I really don’t, you know.”

“No, but nobody ever says so.  Now just hear this new pupil instruct me.”

The new pupil, who thinks a riding habit should be worn over two or three skirts, and is consequently sitting with the aerial elegance of a feather bed, is riding with her snaffle rein, the curb tied on her horse’s neck, and is clasping it by the centre, allowing the rest to hang loose, so that Clifton, supposing that she means to give him liberty to browse, is looking for grass among the tan.  Not finding it, he snorts occasionally, whereupon she calls him “poor thing,” and tells him that “it is a warm day, and that he should rest, so he should!”

“Your reins are too long,” says your master.

“Do you mean that they are too long, or that I am holding them so as to make them too long,” she inquires, in a precise manner.

“They are right enough.  Our saddlers know their business.  But you are holding them so that you might as well have none.  Shorten them, and make him bring his head up in its proper place.”

“But I think it’s cruel to treat him so, when he’s tired, poor thing!  I always hold my reins in the middle when I’m driving, and my horse goes straight enough.  This one seems dizzy.  He goes round and round.”

“He wouldn’t if he were in harness with two shafts to keep his head straight”—­

“But then why wouldn’t it be a good thing to have some kind of a light shaft for a beginner’s horse?”

“It would be a neat addition to a side saddle,” says your master, “but shorten your reins.  Take one in each hand.  Leave about eight inches of rein between your hands.  There!  See.  Now Guide your horse.”

He leaves her, in order that he may enjoy the idea of the side saddle with shafts, and she promptly resumes her old attitude which she feels is elegant, and when Clifton wanders up beside Abdallah, she sweetly asks Nell, “Is this your first lesson?  Do you think this horse is good?  The master wants me to pull on my reins, but I think it is inhuman, and I won’t, and”—­but Clifton strays out of hearing, and your arouse yourselves to remember that you are having more fun than work.