and sit down on the woman's hair
trunk in front of the tavern to reason with her. The baby joins its
voice from the coach window in the clamor of the discussion. The baby
prevails. The stage company comes to a compromise, the woman dismounts,
and we are off, away from the white houses, over the sandy road, out
upon a hilly and not cheerful country. And the driver begins to tell us
stories of winter hardships, drifted highways, a land buried in snow,
and great peril to men and cattle.

III

"It was then summer, and the weather very fine; so pleased
was I with the country, in which I had never travelled
before, that my delight proved equal to my wonder."
-- BENVENUTO CELLINI.

There are few pleasures in life equal to that of riding on the box-seat
of a stagecoach, through a country unknown to you and hearing the driver
talk about his horses. We made the intimate acquaintance of twelve
horses on that day's ride, and learned the peculiar disposition
and traits of each one of them, their ambition of display, their
sensitiveness to praise or blame, their faithfulness, their playfulness,
the readiness with which they yielded to kind treatment, their
daintiness about food and lodging.

May I never forget the spirited little jade, the off-leader in the third
stage, the petted belle of the route, the nervous, coquettish, mincing
mare of Marshy Hope. A spoiled beauty she was; you could see that as
she took the road with dancing step, tossing her pretty head about, and
conscious of her shining black coat and her tail done up "in any simple
knot,"--like the back hair of Shelley's Beatrice Cenci. How she ambled
and sidled and plumed herself, and now and then let fly her little heels
high in air in mere excess of larkish feeling.

"So! girl; so! Kitty," murmurs the driver in the softest tones of
admiration; "she don't mean anything by it, she's just like a kitten."

But the heels keep flying above the traces, and by and by the driver
is obliged to "speak hash" to the beauty. The reproof of the displeased
tone is evidently felt, for she settles at once to her work, showing
perhaps a little impatience, jerking her head up and down, and
protesting by her nimble movements against the more deliberate trot
of her companion. I believe that a blow from the cruel lash would have
broken her heart; or else it would have made a little fiend of the
spirited creature. The lash is hardly ever good for the sex.

Fo