from quarters vaguely specified as "a person
who knows," or "a man who rides a great deal." meaning somebody
who is in the saddle twenty times a year, and duly pays his
livery stable bill for the privilege, and you would confide in
some other exercise rider, if possible, in the hearing of seven
or eight pupils, that your master was not much of a rider after
all, that the "natural rider is best," and you would insinuate
that to observe perfection it was only necessary to look at you.
If, in addition to this, you could intimate to any worried or
impatient pupils that they had not been properly taught, you
would make yourself generally beloved, and these are the ways of
the casual exercise rider, male and female. But you, Esmeralda,
are slightly unfitted for the perfect assumption of this part by
knowing how certain things ought to be done, although you cannot
do them, and alas! you are not yet adapted to the humbler but
prettier character of the real exercise rider, who is thoroughly
taught, and whose every movement is a pleasure to behold.

There are many such women and a few men who prefer the ring to
the road for various reasons, and from them you may learn much,
both by observation and from the hints which many of them will
give you if they find that you are anxious to learn, and that you
are really nothing more pretentious than a solitary student. So
into the saddle you go, and you and Nell begin to walk about in
company. "In company," indeed, for about half a round, and then
you begin to fall behind. Touching your Abdallah lightly with
whip and heel starts him into a trot and coming up beside Nell
you start off her Arab, and both horses are rather astonished to
be checked. What do these girls want, they think, and when you
fall behind again, it takes too strokes of the whip to urge
Abdallah forward, Arab is unmoved by your passing him, and you
find the breadth of the ring dividing you and Nell. You pause,
she turns to the right, crosses the space between you, turns
again and is by your side, and now both of you begin to see what
you must do. Nell, who is riding on the inside, that is to say on
the included square, must check her horse very slightly after
turning each corner, and you must hasten yours a little before
turning, and a little after, so as to give her sufficient space
to turn, and, at the same time, to keep up with her. You, being
on her left, must be very careful every moment to have a firm
hold of y