than Michael," he commented; but here Jinny assented so positively
that they were fain to drag her away by main force.

To her eccentric and thoughtless youth succeeded a calm maturity in
which her conservative sagacity was steadily developed. She now
worked for her living, subject, however, to a nice discrimination
by which she limited herself to a certain amount of work, beyond
which neither threats, beatings, nor cajoleries would force her.
At certain hours she would start for the stable with or without the
incumbrances of the cart or Michael, turning two long and deaf ears
on all expostulation or entreaty. "Now, God be good to me," said
Michael, one day picking himself out from a ditch as he gazed
sorrowfully after the flying heels of Jinny, "but it's only the
second load of cabbages I'm bringin' the day, and if she's shtruck
NOW, it's ruined I am entoirely." But he was mistaken; after two
hours of rumination Jinny returned of her own free will, having
evidently mistaken the time, and it is said even consented to draw
an extra load to make up the deficiency. It may be imagined from
this and other circumstances that Michael stood a little in awe of
Jinny's superior intellect, and that Jinny occasionally, with the
instinct of her sex, presumed upon it. After the Sunday episode,
already referred to, she was given her liberty on that day, a
privilege she gracefully recognized by somewhat unbending her usual
austerity in the indulgence of a saturnine humor. She would visit
the mining camps, and, grazing lazily and thoughtfully before the
cabins, would, by various artifices and coquetries known to the
female heart, induce some credulous stranger to approach her with
the intention of taking a ride. She would submit hesitatingly to a
halter, allow him to mount her back, and, with every expression of
timid and fearful reluctance, at last permit him to guide her in a