"But you should never start up hastily," said the master. "Take
time for everything, and check your horse the instant he goes
faster than you mean to have him. You are a good girl, and you
shall not be scolded, or snubbed, either," he muttered, and the
party came up, the cavalryman and the Texan loud in praise, the
other four clamorous with questions and advice.

"You look quite disheveled," said the society young lady
agreeably.

"Ladies often do after they have been on the road a little while.
Excuse me, but one of your skirt buttons is unfastened," said the
master, and, not knowing how to pass her reins into her right
hand so as to use her left to repair the accident, the society
young lady was effectually silenced, while the master, holding
Esmeralda's horse, made her wipe her face, arrange the curly
locks flying about her ears, readjust her hat, and generally
smooth her plumage, until she was once more comfortable.

After a little, the master proposed a trot up the hill, and
instructed Esmeralda to lean forward as her horse climbed upward,
"If you should have to trot down hill, lean back a little, and
keep your reins short," he said.

The lawyer and the society young lady, essaying to descend the
next hill brilliantly, barely escaped going over their horses'
heads, and all four ladies were glad when they perceived that
they were going homeward.

"I like it," Esmeralda said to the master, "but I wish I knew
more, and I'm going to learn, and I see now that three lessons
isn't enough, even for a beginning."

"I knew a girl who took seventeen lessons and then was thrown,"
said the society young lady. "Native ability is better than
teaching. I don't believe any master could make a rider of you,
Esmeralda."

"A good teacher can make a rider out of anyone who will study,"
said the master, to whom she looked for approval. "As for
seventeen lessons, they are better than seven, of course, but
they are not much, after all. How many dancing lessons, music
lessons, elocution lessons have you taken? More than seventeen? I
thought so. Here's a railroad bridge, but no train coming. Had
one been approaching, and had there been no chance to cross it
before it came, I should have made you turn Ronald the other way,
Miss Esmeralda, so that if he ran he would run out of what he
thinks is danger, and not into it. And now for an easy little
trot home."

An easy little trot it was, and Esmeralda, left at her own door,
whe