st
case of melancholia. Some shied; others were liable to be overcome by
"blind staggers"; three had the epizootic badly, and longed to lie down;
one was nearly blind. At last I was told of a lady who desired to leave
her pet horse and Sargent buggy in some country home during her three
months' trip abroad.

Both were so highly praised as <i>just the thing</i> that I took them on
faith.

I judge that a woman can lie worse than a man about a horse!

"You will love my Nellie" she wrote. "I hate to part with her, even for
the summer. She has been a famous racer in Canada--can travel easily
twenty-five miles a day. Will go better at the end of the journey than
at the beginning. I hear you are an accomplished driver, so I send my
pet to your care without anxiety."

I sent a man to her home to drive out with this delightful treasure, and
pictured myself taking long and daily drives over our excellent country
roads. Nellie, <i>dear</i> Nellie; I loved her already. How I would pet her,
and how fond she would become of me. Two lumps of sugar at least, every
day for her, and red ribbons for the whip. How she would dash along! A
horse for me at last! About 1.45 A.M., of the next day, a carriage was
heard slowly entering the yard. I could hardly wait until morning to
gloat over my gentle racer! At early dawn I visited the stable and found
John disgusted beyond measure with my bargain. A worn-out, tumble-down,
rickety carriage with wobbling wheels, and an equally worn-out, thin,
dejected, venerable animal, with an immense blood spavin on left hind
leg, recently blistered! It took three weeks of constant doctoring,
investment in Kendall's Spavin Cure, and consultation with an expensive
veterinary surgeon, to get the whilom race horse into a condition to
slowly walk to market. I understood now the force of the one truthful
clause--"She will go better at the end of the drive than at the
beginning," for it was well-nigh impossible to get her stiff legs
started without a fire kindled under them and a measure of oats held
enticingly before her. It was enraging, but nothing to after
experiences. All the disappointed livery men, their complaisance and
cordiality, wholly a thing of the past, were jubilant that I had been so
imposed upon by some one, even if they had failed. And their looks, as
they wheeled rapidly by me, as I crept along with the poor, suffering,
limping "Nellie," were almost more than I could endure.

Horses were agai