“You had better ride this morning, Monde. Take Kate, she is hard on the bit; but all the better. I like this grappling with tough-bitted circumstances. It is exactly what you need to do. You have the name your old grandmother Hedelquiver had in her day. You can see yourself that you are like that portrait up there; and I want you to get hold of her energy--her kind of life. You have been an idle child compared with her, I fancy.” “No doubt of it, uncle,” said I, with tears choking me. “But, because I have been so penned up there in the city, and by our bad circumstances, I could not do any thing but fold my hands and sigh, and long for better things to come to me.” “Well, well, there is room here you see,” tossing his hand a little toward the window, through which we see the pine-covered Green Mountains that are near, and the snowy White Hills that are far, but gigantic and splendid to see. “You had better go the road we went yesterday,” preparing to leave the room, “over the hills. It is stinging cold up there, but all the better for that.” Aunt dreaded the hills-- “I would let her go down the other way,” begged she. “No--if she is wise, she will face the cold and wind--see the snow-birds out there!--and you are a little bit wise aint you, Monde?” with a smile the sweetest and most beaming one ever sees on mortal face. It is the more enlivening to see, because his brow when he is grave is so dark, heavy, and over-arching. It is pleasant therefore that he smiles often, when he is talking--that is, if he talks of the things that he values. “O, I don’t know, uncle,” I replied. “I fear I have little wisdom or little any thing worth having. But I would like the bracing wind and this gleaming sunshine on the hills, at any rate. It must be glorious!--Is Kate fond of being mounted? Has any one ever rode her?” “Many times. As I said before, she is hard-bited, but kind.” This is all uncle would have said; for he looks forward, leaving the dead to bury their dead. But aunt said, with drooping figure and dreamy voice-- “Poor Alice used to ride her very often when Alfred was here--at any other time she was afraid. But, then, he used to ride John, and urge her out. He was always anxious that she should ride often, although I am sure I don’t know why.” No, aunt seldom knows why things are thus and so, which is something of an annoyance to uncle, to whom most things in physics and metaphysics are merest transparencies. “John was such a headstrong horse,” resumed aunt, looking dreamily down on the crumb of bread she was rolling along the table-cover; “he was so headstrong, and Alfred not accustomed to the saddle--living in the city, as he has, for so many years. I was never easy when they were gone. I was always expecting that something bad would happen to them in some way.”