'Oughtn't a steady worker to rise in life, and isn't it sad to see cleverer men and better workers--if they liked--kept down by their own fault ?' 'Why wasn't your roan mare born black or chestnut ?' says Jim, laughing, and pretending to touch her up.

'Come along, and let's see if she can trot as well as she used to do ?' 'Poor Lowan,' says she, patting the mare's smooth neck (she was a wonderful neat, well-bred, dark roan, with black points--one of dad's, perhaps, that he'd brought her home one time he was in special good humour about something.

Where she was bred or how, nobody ever knew); 'she was born pretty and good.

How little trouble her life gives her.
It's a pity we can't all say as much, or have as little on our minds.' 'Whose fault's that ?' says Jim.

'The dingo must live as well as the collie or the sheep either.