196 IN THE HIDING-SCHOOL. 



XIII. 



'Tis an old maxim in the schools, 

 That flattery's the food of fools. 



Swift. 



IF American children and American 

 girls were the angels which their 

 mothers and their lovers tell them 

 that they are, the best possible rid- 

 ing master for them would be an American sol- 

 dier who had learned and had taught riding at 

 West Point. Being of the same race, pupil and 

 teacher would have that vast fund of common 

 memories, hopes and feelings ; that common 

 knowledge of character, of good qualities and 

 of defects, and that ability to divine motives 

 and to predict action which constitute perfect 

 sympathy, and their relations to one another 

 would be mutually agreeable and profitable. 

 Unfortunately, Esmeralda, you, like possibly 

 some other American girls, are not an angel, 

 and if you were, you could not have such a 



