IN THE RIDING-SCHOOL. 159 



do all youthful equestrians feel, excepting those 

 doubly-dyed in conceit, who fancy that they 

 have mastered a whole art in less than twelve 

 hours. You certainly are not a good rider, and 

 yet you have received instruction on almost 

 every point in regard to which you would need 

 to know anything in an ordinary ride on a good 

 road. You have not yet been taught every one 

 of these things, certainly, for she who has been 

 really taught a physical or mental feat, can 

 execute it at will, but you have been partly 

 instructed, and it is yours to see that the in- 

 struction is not wasted, by not being either 

 repeated, or faithfully reduced to practice. 

 Remember clever Mrs. Wesley's answer to the 

 unwise person who said in reproof, " You have 

 told that thing to that child thirty times." 

 " Had I told it but twenty-nine," replied the 

 indomitable Susanna, "they had been wasted." 

 What you need now is practice, preferably in 

 the ring with a teacher, but if you cannot 

 afford that, without a teacher, and road rides 

 whenever you can have them on a safe horse, 

 taken from a school stable, if possible, with 

 companions like yourself, intent upon study 



