“My young ladies,” he says, “at the point at which you are in the equestrian art, what you should do is to keep doing what you know, over and over again, no matter if you do it wrong.  Keep doing and doing, and by and by you will do it right.  I have tried that plan of perfecting each step before undertaking another, but it is of no use with American ladies.  You will not do things at all, unless you can do them well, you say.  That is to say if you were to go to a ball, and were to say, ’No, I have taken lessons, I have danced in school, but I am afraid I cannot do so well as some others.  I will not dance here.’  That would not be the way to do.  Dance, and again dance, and if you make a little mistake, dance again!  The mistake is of the past; it is not matter for troubling; dance again, and do not make it again.  And so of riding, ride, and again ride!  Try all ways.  Take your foot out of the stirrup sometimes, and slip it back again without stopping your horse, and when you can do it at the walk, do it at the trot, and keep rising!  And learn not to be afraid to keep trotting after you are a little tired.  Keep trotting!  Keep trotting!  Then you will know real pleasure, and you will not hurt your horses, as you will if you pull them up just as they begin to enjoy the pace.  And then”—­looking very hard at nothing at all, and not at you, Esmeralda, as your guilty soul fancies—­ “and then, gentlemen will not be afraid to ride with you for fear of spoiling their horses by checking them too often.”

And with this he goes away, and on!  Esmeralda, does not the society young lady make life pleasant for you and Nell in the dressing-room, until the beauty attracts general attention by stating that she has had an hour of torment!

“Perhaps you have not noticed that most of these saddles are buckskin,” she continues; “I did not, until I found myself slipping about on mine to day as if it were glazed, and lo!  It was pigskin, and that made the difference.  I would not have it changed, because the Texan is always sneering at English pigskin, and I wanted to learn to ride on it; but, until the last quarter of the hour, I expected to slip off.  I rather think I should have,” she adds, “only just as I was ready to slip off on one side, something would occur to make me slip to the other.  I shall not be afraid of pigskin again, ad you would better try it, every one of you.  Suppose you should get a horse from a livery stable some day with one of those slippery saddles!”

“I am thinking of buying a horse,” says the society young lad; “but the master says that I do not know enough to ride a beast that has been really trained.  Fancy that!”

“And all the authorities agree with him,” says Versatilia, who has accumulated a small library of books on equestrianism since she began to take lessons.  “Your horse ought not to know much more than you do—­for if he do, you will find him perfectly unmanageable.”

Here you and Nell flee on the wings of discretion.  The daring of the girl!  To tell the society young lady that a horse may know more than she does!