wandering up into the cavernous darkness overhead.

"She does her work," said Lapham shortly.

Bartley mounted to the left side of the open buggy standing at
the curb-stone, and Lapham, gathering up the hitching-weight,
slid it under the buggy-seat and mounted beside him.

"No chance to speed a horse here, of course," said Lapham,
while the horse with a spirited gentleness picked her way,
with a high, long action, over the pavement of the street.
The streets were all narrow, and most of them crooked,
in that quarter of the town; but at the end of one
the spars of a vessel pencilled themselves delicately
against the cool blue of the afternoon sky. The air
was full of a smell pleasantly compounded of oakum,
of leather, and of oil. It was not the busy season,
and they met only two or three trucks heavily straggling
toward the wharf with their long string teams; but the
cobble-stones of the pavement were worn with the dint of
ponderous wheels, and discoloured with iron-rust from them;
here and there, in wandering streaks over its surface,
was the grey stain of the salt water with which the street
had been sprinkled.

After an interval of some minutes, which both men
spent in looking round the dash-board from opposite
sides to watch the stride of the horse, Bartley said,
with a light sigh, "I had a colt once down in Maine
that stepped just like that mare."