Last spring I almost learned to ride a bicycle. Those who have had a similar struggle will correctly estimate the exact value of that word almost . I was laboring under peculiar difficulties, for I was a whilom inmate of one of those sacred institutions—a young ladies' boarding-school,—where any infringement upon the Spartan law of dignity would have been looked upon as less pardonable than a simultaneous indulgence in the seven deadly sins. My agony of mind and body under those circumstances ca