a woman and a girl were jogging along in a country-wagon. As we wished to
go much faster than they, we turned aside to pass them; but just as we
were well abreast, the woman started up her horse, and he skimmed over the
ground like a bird. We laughed, and followed well content. But after he
had gone perhaps an eighth of a mile, his speed slackened down to the
former jog-trot. Three times we attempted to pass before we really
comprehended the fact that that infamous woman was deliberately detaining
and annoying us. The third time, when we had so nearly passed them that
our horse was turning into the road again, she struck hers up so suddenly
and unexpectedly that her wheels almost grazed ours. Of course,
understanding her game, we ceased the attempt, having no taste for
horse-racing; and nearly all the way from Newburyport to Rowley, she kept
up that brigandry, jogging on and forcing us to jog on, neither going
ahead herself nor suffering us to do so,--a perfect and most provoking dog
in a manger. Her girl-associate would look behind every now and then to
take observations, and I mentally hoped that the frisky Bucephalus would
frisk his mistress out of the cart and break her ne-- arm, or at least put
her shoulder out of joint. If he did, I had fully determined in my own
mind to hasten to her assistance and shame her to death with delicate and
assiduous kindness. But fate lingered like all the rest of us. She reached
Rowley in safety, and there our roads separated. Whether she stopped
there, or drove into Ethiopian wastes beyond, I cannot say; but I have no
doubt that the milk which she carried into Newburyport to market was blue,
the butter frowy, and the potatoes exceedingly small.

Now do you mean to tell me that any man would have been guilty of such a
thing? I don't mean, would have committed such discourtesy to a woman? Of
course not; but would a man ever do it to a man? Never. He might try it
once or twice, just for fun, just to show off his horse, but he never
would have persisted in it till a joke became an insult, not to say a