was seized with desire for exercise
in the open air, she gave us no chance to guess. We resolved upon more
caution of advance and gentler voice, and so laboriously approached her;
for though a pail of water is light for a little way, it gets heavy after
you have gone a considerable distance, though its contents be half spilled
away.

This time we succeeded in getting her nose inserted into the bright
beverage. We called her by pet names, addressing her as "Poor Dolly!" not
wishing to suggest any pauperism by that term, but only sympathy for the
sorrows of the brute creation, and told her that she was the finest horse
that ever was. It seemed to take well. Flattery always does--with horses.

We felt that the time had come for us to produce the rope halter, which
with our left hand we had all the while kept secreted behind our back. We
put it over her neck, when the beast wheeled, and we seized her by the
point where the copy-books say we ought to take Time, namely, the forelock.
But we had poor luck. We ceased all caressing tone, and changed the
subjunctive mood for the imperative. There never was a greater divergence
of sentiment than at that instant between us and the bay mare. She pulled
one way, we pulled the other. Turning her back upon us, she ejaculated into
the air two shining horse-shoes, both the shape of the letter O, the one
interjection in contempt for the ministry, and the other in contempt for
the press.

But catch the horse we must, for we were bound to be at church, though jute
then we did not feel at all devotional. We resolved, therefore, with the
boy, to run her down; so, by the way of making an animated start, we slung
the pail at the horse's head, and put out on a Sunday morning horse-race.
Every time she stood at the other end of the field waiting for us to come
up. She trotted, galloped and careered about us, with an occasional neigh
cheerfully given to encourage us in the pursuit. We were getting more
unprepared in body, mind and soul for the sanctuary. Meanwhile, quite a
household audience lined the fence; the children and visitors shouting like
excited Romans in an amphitheatre at a contest with wild beasts, and it
was uncertain whether the audience was in sympathy with us or the bay mare.

At this unhappy juncture, she who some years ago took us for "better or for
worse" came to the rescue, finding us in the latter condition. She advanced
to the field with a wash-basin full of water, offerin