24 HOESE PORTRAITURE. 



driven slowly on the road, as whenever started to speed, 

 her pulling propensities returned in full force, and it 

 took a strong arm to restrain her from running away. 

 Again she went into the hands of a trainer of trotting 

 horses. This man brought her home in a couple of 

 months with a knee enlarged to twice its natural size ; 

 her mouth torn to pieces with severe bits, and a jaded ap- 

 pearance, as though she had been towing a canal boat the 

 whole summer. 



I heard she was offered for sale at a low figure, and 

 succeeded in purchasing her. I have "great expecta- 

 tions" that, under your judicious directions, she will yet 

 prove a good animal. I must own I am going to put 

 your skill to a very severe test, as I have none but those 

 who have been very badly handled, or young things that 

 we can only surmise whether they will trot or not. To 

 return to this mare's peculiarities, her gait is the reverse 

 of the brown horse's, square as a brick, with a long open 

 stride. 



PRECEPTOB. I like the appearance of Madam Jane very 

 .well. She has evidently a fund of strength that can be 

 made available for either good or evil. With proper 

 teaching she would have been ignorant of exerting it to 

 our prejudice. Now we will have to depend on gaining 

 her affection, so that she will have the same confidence in 

 us that she had in the lady who had the temerity to intrust 

 her own and her children's lives to a horse that had ever 

 run away. There is a subtle fluid, magnetism we will call 

 it, between the horse and driver, the reins being the me- 

 dium through which it is conveyed. How angry I be- 

 come when I see a big brute tugging away for dear life at 

 these leathern straps, his body braced as if a yoke of oxen 

 were hitched to him to pull him from his seat, yelling at 

 the top of his voice, self-satisfied that he is an expert. 

 The horse has ten times more sense than he, and has 



