bbin waited and waited till the bell stopped ringing and
all the other horses which attended church had gone by; and at last he
got clear out of patience, and started along without them. Mamma says
the people laughed to see him trot up to the church-door and down to the
sheds and walk straight into his own place, and when service was over
back himself out and trot home again."

"What did Miss Betsey and Miss Sally do?"

"Oh, they had to stay at home. When they came out they saw the old
chaise ever so far off, going toward the church, and they felt pretty
sure old Dobbin was going to meeting on his own account. That is a true
story Miss Ruth, every word of it--mamma says so."

"Our old Ned cheated us all last summer," said Florence Austin, "by
pretending to be lame. He really was made lame, at first, one day when
mamma was driving, by getting a stone in his foot, and she turned
directly and walked him all the way back to the stable. But when William
had taken out the stone, he seemed to be all right, and the next
afternoon mamma and Alice and I started for a drive. We got about a mile
out of town, when all at once Ned began to limp. Mamma and Alice got out
of the phaeton, and looked his feet all over, for they thought may be he
had picked up another stone; but they couldn't see the least thing out
of the way, only that he limped dreadfully as if it half-killed him to
go. Well, there was nothing to be done but to give up our drive; for we
couldn't bear to ride after a lame horse!"

"I can't either!" Mollie interjected.

"Well, he had been lately shod, and our coachman thought that perhaps a
nail from one of the shoes pricked his foot, so he started to take him
to the blacksmith's. But don't you think, as soon as Ned knew that
William was driving, he started off at a brisk trot and wasn't the least
bit lame I but the next time mamma took him out, he began to limp
directly, and kept looking round as much as to say: 'How can you be so
cruel as to make me go, when you must see every step I take hurts me?'
But when mamma came home with him again, William said: 'It's chatin' you
he is, marm.'"

"And what did your mother do?"

"Well, as soon as she made up her mind that he was shamming, she took no
notice of his little trick, but touched him up with the whip, and made
him go right along. He knew directly that she had found him out. Oh, he
is _such_ a knowing horse! The other day Alice was leading him through
the big gate