rd pulling, and down-hill so dangerous!"

Old Soldier can discern a grade of five feet to the mile of either. If I
did not know his history, (an old omnibus horse,) I should say he
must have practised surveying for years. He accommodates himself most
obligingly to his mistress's whims, and walks carefully most of the
time, except when he is ambitious of great praise at little cost, when
he makes the charges aforesaid.

"He is so considerate, usually!" Kate says; "he knows we don't like
tearing up and down hills; but now and then his spirit runs away with
him!"--I wish it would some day with us. No hope of it!

We stop every two miles to water the horse, and though we are
exceedingly moderate in our donations, we are a fortune to the hostlers.
I carry the purse, as Kate is quite occupied in holding the reins, and
keeping a sharp look-out that her charger don't run off. Not that he
ever showed a disposition that way,--being generally quite agreeable,
if we wish him to stand ever so long a time; but Kate says he is very
nervous, and he _might_ be startled, and then we _might_ find it
impossible to stop him,--a thing easy enough hitherto.

I am obliged to keep the purse in my hand all the time, there being such
frequent use for it. Kate says,--

"Give the man a half-dime, Charlie, if you can find one. A three-cent
piece looks mean, you know; and a fip mounts up so, it is rather
extravagant. That is the twelfth fip that man has had this week, and for
only holding up a bucket a half-minute at a time; for Soldier only takes
one swallow."

She will pay every time we stop, if it is six times a day.

"Shall I give the man a half-dollar at once," I ask, "and let that do
for a week?"

"No, indeed! How mean I should feel, sneaking off without paying!"

When the roadside shows a patch of tender grass, Kate eyes it, and
checks Soldier's pace. He knows what that means, and edges toward the
tempting herbage.

"Poor fellow!" his driver says,--"it is like our having to pass a plate
of peaches. Let him have a bite."

And so we wait while he grazes awhile. It is the same thing when we
cross a brook, and Soldier pauses in it to cool his feet and look at his
reflection in the water.

"Perhaps he wants a drink. We won't hurry him. We will let him see that
we can afford to wait."

If he had not come to that conclusion from the very start, he must have
believed human beings were miracles of patience and forbearance.

I could wr