154 IN THE BIDING-SCHOOL. 



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 dis- 

 mount to find the rider of the alleged William 

 assuring John, the head groom, that that re- 

 doubtable 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 



