“Well, ma’am, I can’t deny that having his head has helped him up the hill, and I’ll remember it another time, and thank you, ma’am; but if he went without a checkrein I should be the laughing stock of all the carters; it is the fashion, you see.”

“Is it not better,” she said, “to lead a good fashion than to follow a bad one? A great many gentlemen do not use checkreins now; our carriage horses have not worn them for fifteen years, and work with much less fatigue than those who have them; besides,” she added in a very serious voice, “we have no right to distress any of God’s creatures without a very good reason; we call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words. But I must not detain you now; I thank you for trying my plan with your good horse, and I am sure you will find it far better than the whip. Good day,” and with another soft pat on my neck she stepped lightly across the path, and I saw her no more.