It was a whole year before I was permitted to mount his little black riding mare, called Missy.

She was old, it is true--nobody quite knew how old she was--but if she felt a light weight on her back, either the spirit of youth was contagious, or she fancied herself as young as when she thought nothing of twelve stone, and would dart off like the wind.

In after years I got so found of her, that I would stand by her side flacking the flies from her as she grazed; and when I tired of that, would clamber upon her back, and lie there reading my book, while she plucked on and ground and mashed away at the grass as if nobody were near her.
Then there was the choice, if nothing else were found more attractive, of going to the field where the cattle were grazing.

Oh! the rich hot summer afternoons among the grass and the clover, the little lamb-daisies, and the big horse-daisies, with the cattle feeding solemnly, but one and another straying now to the corn, now to the turnips, and recalled by stern shouts, or, if that were unavailing, by vigorous pursuit and even blows! If I had been able to think of a mother at home, I should have been perfectly happy.

Not that I missed her then; I had lost her too young for that.