“Now, BONNER,” she said to the driver, taking leave of him at the ferry-boat, “be sure and let Miss CAROWTHERS know that you saw me safely off, and that I was not a bit more tired than if I had walked all the way.”

Blushing with pleasure at the implied compliment to his equipage from such lips, the skilled horseman had not the heart to object to the wildly mutilated fragment of currency with which his fare had been paid, and went back to where his steeds were taking turns in holding each other up, as happy a man as ever lost money by the change in woman.

Reaching the city, Miss POTTS was promptly worshiped by a hackman of marked conversational powers, who, whip in hand, assured her that his carriage was widely celebrated under the titles of the “Rocking Chair,” the “Old Shoe,” and the “Glider,” on account of its incredible ease of motion; and that, owing to its exquisite abbreviation of travel to the emotions, those who rode in it had actually been known to dispute that they had ridden even half the distance for which they were charged.  Did he know where Mr. DIBBLE, the lawyer, lived, in Nassau Street, near Fulton?  If she meant lawyer DIBBLE, near Fulton Street, in Nassau, next door but one to the second house below, and directly opposite the building across the way, there was just one span of buckskin horses in the city that could take a carriage built expressly for ladies to that place, as naturally as though it were a stable.  It was a place that he—­the hackman—­always associated with his own mother, because he was so familiar with it in childhood, and had often thought of driving to it blindfolded for a wager.

Proud to learn that her guardian was so well known in the great city, and delighted that she had met a charioteer so minutely familiar with his house of business, FLORA stepped readily into the providential hack, which thereupon instantly began Rocking-Chair-ing, Old-Shoe-ing, and Gliding.  Any one of these celebrated processes, by itself, might have been desirable; but their indiscriminate and impetuous combination in the present case gave the Flowerpot a confused impression that her whole ride was a startling series of incessant sharp turns around obdurate street corners, and kept her plunging about like an early young Protestant tossed in a Romish blanket.  Instinctively holding her satchel aloft, to save its fragile contents from fracture, she rocked, shoed and glided all over the interior of the vehicle, without hope of gaining breath enough for even one scream, until, nearly unconscious, and, with her bonnet driven half-way into her chignon, she was helped out by the hackman at her guardian’s door.

“I am dying!” she groaned.

“Then please remember me in your will, to the extent of two dollars,” returned the hackman with much humor.  “You’re only a little sea-sick, miss; as often happens to people in humble circumstances when they ride in a kerridge for the first time.”