un herself.

And now the difficulties of the situation begin to make themselves
felt, not, indeed, by her, for she remains sublimely unconscious to
the end, but by the men who are compelled to associate with her upon
her ventures. No man will ever hesitate to rebuke another for carrying
his gun in such a way as to threaten danger; but, when a lady allows
him to inspect the inside of her loaded gun-barrels, or shoots down
the line at an evasive rabbit, he must suffer in silence, and can only
seek compensation for restraining his tongue by incontinently removing
his body to a safe place, where he can neither shoot nor be shot. At
luncheon, however, he may be gratified by hearing the Manly Maiden
rally him on the poor result of his morning's sport. She will then
favour him, at length, with her opinions as to how a driven partridge
or a rocketing pheasant should be shot, flavouring her discourse with
copious extracts from the Badminton books on shooting, and adding here
and there imaginative reminiscences of her own exploits in dealing
death. In the hunting-field she will lose her groom, and babble sport
to the Master, with whom she further ingratiates herself by rating and
lashing one of his favourite hounds, or by heading the fox whenever
he attempts to break away. She then crosses him at an awkward fence,
and considers herself aggrieved by the strong language which breaks
irresistibly from the fallen sportsman's lips. Later on she astonishes
an elderly follower of the hounds by asking him for a draught from his
flask, and completes his amazement by complaining of the thoughtless
manner in which he has diluted his brandy.

In the evening she will narrate her adventures at length, amidst
a chorus of admiring comments from her fond parents, and their
parasites, and will follow up her triumphs of the day by pursuing the
men into the smoking-room, where she permits one of them to offer
her a cigarette, and imagines that she delights him by accepting it.
On such an occasion she will inform one of her friends that, on the
whole, she has but a poor opinion of Diana of the Ephesians, seeing
that she only hunted with women, and never allowed men to approach
her. From this it may be inferred that her stock of classical
allusions is not quite so accurate and complete as that of a genuine
sportswoman should be. Next morning she may be seen schooling her
horses in the park. She has a touching faith in the use both of spur
and of whi