The hostler lets go Kitty's bridle, the mules plunge forward, and weare off at a gallop, taking the opposite direction from that pursuedby very aged woman Larue.

This last stage is eleven miles, through a pleasanter country, and wemake it in a trifle over an hour, going at an exhilarating gait, thatraises our spirits out of the Marshy Hope level. The perfection oftravel is twelve miles an hour, on top of a stagecoach; it is greaterspeed than forty by rail. It nurses one's pride to sit aloft, andrattle past the farmhouses, and give our dust to the cringing legtramps. There is something royal in the swaying of the coach body,and an excitement in the patter of the horses' hoofs. And what anhonor it must be to guide such a machine through a region of rusticadmiration!