"We must turn aside here, ladies/' the Captain exclaimed suddenly, as he dexterously alighted and guided the horses by the bits to the only point of advantage in sight. "Cattle and horses ought never to be compelled to travel together. You can't hurry a steer except in a stampede, and then Old Nick himself couldn't stop him."
- ' They remind me of more than one pair of mismated bipeds I have met," said Mrs. McAlpin.
The Captain stood at the horses' heads till the last of the jolting and complaining wagons had safely passed the perilous bit of roadway. Then, guiding the team back to the road, he resumed his seat in the carriage, his lips compressed like a trap.
"Don't you think Mr. Burns is a wonderful man?" asked Mrs. McAlpin, in a desperate effort to rekindle a conversation.
"He's a fellow of considerable genius in some ways, but a mighty poor ox-driver."
"He reminds me of many a woman I have seen," continued Mrs. McAlpin," who has failed to get fitted into her proper niche. His mind isn't fitted to his work. I have seen women chained by circumstances to the kitchen sink, the wash-tub, the chum-dash, and the ironing-board, who never could make a success of any one of these lines of effort, though they might have made excellent astronomers, first-class architects, capable lawyers, good preachers, capital teachers, or splendid financiers. It is a pity to spoil a natural statesman or stateswoman to make a poor ox-driver or an indifferent housekeeper."
"You seem to take great interest in Scotty," remarked the Captain.
"I do. We have travelled extensively through the same lands, though we had never met until our orbits chanced to coincide on this journey. He has a retentive memory, a wide experience, and a keen appreciation of the beautiful, both in nature and art, and so have I. He
