"'Don't be frightened, Mary,' he says. 'The little imp has a good grip, and Victory is as kind as kindness!' he says. All the same, I noticed he was lookin' pretty sharp up the ro'd! And when he see the old mare's nose come round the corner, gee whiminy! he slaps his leg and hollers out, 'A daughter of Jehu!' he says, quotin' Scriptur', I believe, the way he did. 'A daughter of Jehu, for behold she driveth furiously!'" Kitty was laughing outright now. "Dear Papa! I _was_ a little imp, wasn't I, John?" "Yes, Miss, you sure was. But yet--" John Tucker, cocking his head argumentatively, ventured for the first time to look at his companion, saw her face firm and cheerful, and went on with confidence--"but yet you knew what you was about well enough. You'd ben handlin' the ribbons a year or more goin' to and from the stable, 'longside o' me or your Pa: you was tough as hickory, and you was knowledgeable: there warn't nothing to be scared of. 'A daughter of Jehu!' says Doctor, 'for behold she driveth furiously. Here she comes, Mary! she's all right!' He laughed right out, and then he pulls his face straight, and looks mighty solemn, and you come lickety-split along the ro'd and turned in the gate as neat as a whistle, and pulls up front the door. I says to myself, 'Wal!' I says; 'that young one,' I says, 'is all right!' And so it has proved." "Nice John! Thank you, John! And we've been friends ever since, haven't we? But Papa scolded me, didn't he?" "He did, Miss. 'You little imp,' he says, 'I told you to drive round to the stable!' 'Yes, Papa dear,' you says: I can hear you now. 'So I did, dear Papa; round the square!' He had to laugh then, would he or wouldn't he!" "Victory could have made just as good a turn without me!" said honest Kitty. "She was as wise as three ordinary horses; and she knew the way round that turn as well as the way into her own stall. She was pretty old even then, John, wasn't she?" "Victory," said John Tucker, slowly, "was thirty-five years old when she died this spring. I set out to write you, but I couldn't seem to. Kind o' broke me up, losin' her. She was the first hoss ever I come to know and care for. Lemme see! I come to work for Doctor thirty years ago this winter. Victory was five years old, and she was a pictur! prettiest hoss I ever see, bar none. Well! now you might be--?" "Twenty!" said Kitty. "That's right! And Vict'ry was twenty that time you driv her round the square. She kep' smart right along up to the last week, old mare did: I didn't drive her any last summer, only once in a while, so's her feelin's wouldn't be hurt, seein' the other hosses go out. She'd whinny out just as _askin'_! 'Why ain't I goin' out?' she'd say, plain as any person need to speak. Then I'd put her in the light sulky and drive her up and down the ro'd a piece, and she'd antic round and toss up her head as if she was the President's wife goin' to meetin'." "I hope she didn't suffer, John?"