good at
those sort of things, and of course that's all as it should be with my
brothers; but with us girls I don't know that it works quite so well.
We can all dance, but we can none of us draw. We all play lawn tennis
pretty well, but we can't play the piano; can all ride an awkward
horse, but can neither sing a note in Italian nor any other language.
And you--are you fond of any of these things? It is so difficult to
tell what a man likes in London."

"Yes," rejoined Beauchamp, "in the London world we are wont to rave
about matters we really don't care a rush about, to affect aesthetic
tastes which we have not got, and the pretension to which entraps us
into much foolish speaking. We go to all sorts of entertainments we
don't care about, simply because other people go. You must not betray
me, Miss Bloxam, but I declare I think one passes no pleasanter
afternoon in London than when witnessing a good match at Lord's with a
pleasant party on a warm day."

"Ah, we are all cricketers down here in Fernshire, boys and girls, men
and women; we believe we invented the game, and in the old days stood
pre-eminent in it. However, we now number so many disciples, and they
have profited so much by our teaching that we are like the old man who,

"'To teach his grandson draughts then his leisure did employ,
Until at last the old man was beaten by the boy.'"

"Well, we must hope the old county is not going to be beaten this
afternoon; for I take it your brother represents Fernshire, and
Montague England, and the race by all accounts is reduced pretty well
to a match between them. But see, there go the competitors!" and
Beauchamp pointed to five men who, with overcoats thrown loosely over
their flannels, were making their way down to the quarter-mile
starting-post.

In spite of their reputation of being swift-footed, Montague and Bloxam
found three other competitors bent on testing whether they really were
as fast over a quarter of a mile as rumour credited them: men of the
stamp always to be found in the army, who do not believe they are to be
beaten till they have had actual experience of it, and who are wont to
be a little incredulous even then about their conqueror's ability to
repeat his victory. As one of these philosophers remarked, "Montague
means running in the hurdle race; there is always a possibility of his
breaking or straining something in that, and so being _hors de combat_
for the Cup." However, Mr.