med jist made for puttin' an
arm round in walkin'. She was as ac_tive_ and springy on her feet as a
catamount, and near about as touch me-not a sort of customer too.
She actilly did seem as if she was made out of steel springs and
chicken-hawk. If old Cran, was to slip off the handle, I think I should
make up to her, for she is 'a salt,' that's a fact, a most a heavenly
splice.

"Well, the Honourable Cranbery Lot put in for her, won her, and married
her. A good speculation it turned out too, for he got the matter of one
hundred thousand of dollars by her, if he got a cent. As soon as they
were fairly welded, off they sot to take the tour of Europe, and they
larfed and cried, and kissed and quarrelled, and fit and made up all
over the Continent, for her temper was as onsartain as the climate
here--rain one minit and sun the next; but more rain nor sun.

"He was a fool, was Cranbery. He didn't know how to manage her. His
bridle hand warn't good, I tell you. A spry, mettlesome hoss, and a dull
critter with no action, don't mate well in harness, that's a fact.

"After goin' every where, and every where else amost, where should they
get to but the Alps. One arternoon, a sincerely cold one it was too, and
the weather, violent slippy, dark overtook them before they reached the
top of one of the highest and steepest of them mountains, and they had
to spend the night at a poor squatter's shanty.

"Well, next mornin', jist at day-break, and sun-rise on them everlastin'
hills is tall sun-rise, and no mistake, p'rhaps nothin was ever seen so
fine except the first one, since creation. It takes the rag off quite.
Well, she was an enterprisin' little toad, was Miss Lot too, afeered of
nothin' a'most; so nothin' would sarve her but she must out and have a
scramb up to the tip-topest part of the peak afore breakfast.

"Well, the squatter there, who was a kind o' guide, did what he could to
dispersuade her, but all to no purpose; go she would, and a headstrong
woman and a runaway hoss are jist two things it's out of all reason to
try to stop; The only way is to urge 'em on, and then, bein' contr_ary_
by natur', they stop of themselves.

"'Well,' sais the guide, 'if you will go, marm, do take this pike staff,
marm,' sais he; (a sort of walkin'-stick with a spike to the eend of
it), 'for you can't get either up or down them slopes without it, it is
so almighty slippy there.' So she took the staff, and off she sot and
climbed and clim