is 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.

There is plenty of room in the ring, now, so you change hands,
and circle to the left, first walking and then trotting, slowly
at first, and then rapidly, finding to your pleasant surprise,
that, just as you begin to think that you can go no further, you
are suddenly endowed with new strength and can make two more
rounds. "A good half mile," your master says, approvingly, as you
fall into a walk and pass him, and then you do a volte or two,
and one little round at a canter, and then walk five minutes, and
dismount to find the rider of the alleged William assuring John,
the head groom, that redoubtable animal needs "taking down."

"Shall ride him with spurs next time," he says. "I can manage
him, but he would be too much for most men," and away he goes and
a flute-voiced little boy of eight mounts William, retransformed
into Billy Buttons, and guides him like a lamb, and you escape up
stairs to laugh. But you have no time for this before the
merciful young woman enters to say that she is going to another
school, where she can do as she pleases and have better horses,
too, and the more you and Nell assure her that there is no school
in which she can learn without obedience, and that her horse was
too good, if anything, the more determined she becomes, and soon
you wisely desist.

As she departs, "Oh, dear," you say, "I thought there was nothing
but fun at riding-school, and just see all these queer folks."

"My dear," says philosophic Nell, "they ar part of the fun. And
we are fun to the old riders; and we are all fun to our master."

Here you find yourselves enjoying a bit of fun from which your
master is shut out, for three or four girls come up from the ring
together, and, not seeing you, hidden behind your screens, two,
in whom you and Nell have already recognized saleswomen from whom
you have more than once bought laces, begin to talk to overawe
the others.

"My deah," says one, "now I think of it, I weally don't like the
setting of these diamonds that you had given you last night. It's
too heavy, don't you think?"

The other replies in a tone which would cheat a man, but in which
you instantly detect an accent of surprise and a determination to
play up to her partner as well as possible, th