Aurore heard and obeyed with all her might. Five or six times she was jerked upwards out of the saddle, but she always returned to it again, and at the end of an hour--breathless, untidy, and intoxicated with delight--she guided Colette to the stable, feeling that she was capable of managing all the horses of the French Army. As to Colette, who was as new to the business as her mistress, she also had experienced a fresh joy, and from that day till her death she was Aurore's faithful companion. 'Lean, big and ugly when standing,' writes Aurore, 'when moving she became beautiful by force of grace and suppleness. I have ridden many splendid horses admirably trained, but for cleverness and intelligence I have never found the equal of Colette. I have had falls, of course, but they were always the result of my own carelessness, for she never shied nor made a false step. She would suffer nobody else to mount her, but from the first moment she and I understood each other absolutely. At the end of a week we jumped hedges and ditches and swam rivers, for I was suddenly transformed into something bolder than a hussar, and more robust than a peasant.' Curiously enough, Madame Dupin, so little given to exercise herself, was not in the least nervous as to Aurore's adventures, while Madame Maurice never beheld her on a horse's back without hiding her face in her hands and declaring she would die like her father. One day Aurore heard some visitors inquiring why Madame Dupin allowed her granddaughter to do such wild things, and the old lady in reply quoted with rather a sad smile the well-known story of the sailor and the citizen. 'What, sir! Do you tell me that your father and your grandfather both died at sea, and yet you are a sailor? In your place, I would never have set foot in a boat!' 'And your parents, sir? How did they die?' 'In their beds, I am thankful to say!' 'Then, in your place, I would never set foot in a bed.' * * * * *