( I05 ) 



CHAPTER X. 



REINS, VOICE, AND WHIP. 



When you have decided to your own satisfaction that you 

 are mistress of the art of riding from balance — can trot and 

 canter in circles, and in a figure of 8, without reins or 

 stirrup, with waist pliant and nicely hollowed, and shoulders 

 well thrown back— you may, with advantage, take up the 

 reins and learn the uses of them. 



Learners, to whom I have endeavoured to expound this 

 theory of teaching, have asked me once or twice whether 

 there was not some less difficult way by which they might 

 be taught ; and I have no doubt that many among my 

 lady readers are longing to ask me the same question. 

 Certainly there is ; in fact there are several ways which 

 will be found very much less difficult than the one that I 

 am striving to teach. Hosts of riding-masters will engage to 

 perfect you (or very nearly so) in six lessons — will put you 

 on a horse, give you a stirrup and a stout pair of reins, and 

 adjure you volubly to ''hold on," taking very little further 

 trouble about you ; and if you are a plucky, intelligent girl 

 you will hold on, and will canter and trot too, in a sort of 

 way, within the specified time, — and your instructor will take 

 your money with a smile, and allow you to go out into the 



