at such small difficulties. You are shamed into
activity after once seeing your fair charge spring to her place, with
graceful confidence, never soiling the skirt of her dainty robe.

The team that I used to drive constantly were fair, but not remarkable
performers; their best mile-time was a trifle under three minutes twenty
seconds. Their owner had not had leisure to keep them in steady
exercise, so that at first they were very skittish, and prone to break;
but they soon settled down to their work, and then did not pull an ounce
too much for pleasure, even when spinning along at top-speed, with their
small lean heads thrust eagerly forward, after the fashion of the barbs
called "Drinkers of the Wind." Once I drove, in single harness, a
trotter whose time was close on two minutes forty-five seconds; but this
is not considered anything extraordinary, and the outside price of such
an animal would be under one thousand dollars: once "inside the forties"
the fancy prices begin, and go up rapidly to four thousand dollars, or
higher.

It must be remembered that the roads in these parts cannot be compared,
either for level or metal, with the highways over our champagne, they
"cut up" fast in rough weather, and settle slowly, while the ground
generally sinks and swells too abruptly to allow of a lengthened stretch
at full speed. I often wished that the whole "turn-out" of which I have
spoken could be transported, without the risk of sea-passage, into one
of our eastern counties. I can hardly conceive a greater luxury to a
"coachman" than sending such a pair along on the road leading into
Norfolk from Newmarket.

I had been some time in Baltimore before I was honored by an
introduction to the most renowned--it is a bold word--of all its
beauties. To many, even in England, the name of "Flora Temple" will not
sound strange: her great feat of the mile in two minutes nineteen
seconds has never yet been equaled, and for the last three years she has
rested idly on her laurels, in default of any challenger to dispute her
sovereignty of the turf. Her owner, W. Macdonald, Esq., resides within a
short distance of the city, and, I doubt not, would receive any stranger
with the same courtesy that he extended to me. His stables are well
worth a visit, for, besides the fair champion, they contain several
other trotters of no mean repute (one team, the "Chicago Chestnuts," is
a notoriety), and the carriages exemplify every improvement of Am