r his shaving-soap, and made him observe
how carefully she had provided against such confusion, by placing them
as far apart from each other as the nature of saddle-bags will admit.
The poor Parson--who was really by no means an absent man, but as little
likely to shave himself with sandwiches and lunch upon soap as the most
common-place mortal may be--listened with conjugal patience, and thought
that man never had such a wife before; nor was it without tears in his
own eyes that he tore himself from the farewell embrace of his weeping
Carry.

I confess, however, that it was with some apprehension that he set his
foot in the stirrup, and trusted his person to the mercies of an
unfamiliar animal. For whatever might be Mr. Dale's minor
accomplishments as man and parson, horsemanship was not his forte.
Indeed, I doubt if he had taken the reins in his hand more than once
since he had been married.

The Squire's surly old groom, Mat, was in attendance with the pad; and,
to the Parson's gentle inquiry whether Mat was quite sure that the pad
was quite safe, replied laconically, "Oi, oi, give her her head."

"Give her her head!" repeated Mr. Dale, rather amazed, for he had not
the slightest intention of taking away that part of the beast's frame,
so essential to its vital economy--"Give her her head!"

"Oi, oi; and don't jerk her up like that, or she'll fall a doincing on
her hind-legs."

The Parson instantly slackened the reins; and Mrs. Dale--who had tarried
behind to control her tears--now running to the door for 'more last
words,' he waved his hand with courageous amenity, and ambled forth into
the lane.

Our equestrian was absorbed at first in studying the idiosyncrasies of
the pad, and trying thereby to arrive at some notion of her general
character: guessing, for instance, why she raised one ear and laid down
the other; why she kept bearing so close to the left that she brushed
his leg against the hedge; and why, when she arrived at a little
side-gate in the fields, which led towards the home-farm, she came to a
full stop, and fell to rubbing her nose against the rail--an occupation
from which the Parson, finding all civil remonstrances in vain, at
length diverted her by a timorous application of the whip.

This crisis on the road fairly passed, the pad seemed to comprehend that
she had a journey before her, and giving a petulant whisk of her tail,
quickened her amble into a short trot, which soon brought the Par