OVER BANK AND TIMBER. 123 



was going to make his fortune by breeding pie- 

 balds, and when I caught sight of the pony one 

 day in the fields and asked her owner to sell her to 

 me, he told me he could not think of parting with 

 her, as she was in foal to a piebald sire. I laughed 

 at him, and told him the foal would be sure to be 

 a whole-coloured one; so he promised that if I 

 should prove to be right he would let me have the 

 mother. As the foal when it came was a dark- 

 brown filly without a white hair in her, Houp la 

 came into my possession. 



Like all Kussian ponies, Houp la grows an extra- 

 ordinary coat in the winter, and this she much 

 resents having taken off. She generally has to be 

 clipped four or five times during the winter months, 

 and though she is usually quiet and gentle to a 

 degree, she always plays tricks the first time she 

 is driven after the operation. She has been with 

 me many years, and is not likely to leave me 

 while she and I are both alive. 



