ntifully of cherry-brandy on hunting
days; but, as a rule, they do not often misbehave themselves. They
are very careful not to be caught in marriage, and talk about women
much as a crafty knowing salmon might be presumed to talk about
anglers. The ladies are given to dancing, of course, and are none
of them nearly so old as you might perhaps be led to imagine. They
greatly eschew card-playing; but, nevertheless, now and again one of
them may be seen to lapse from her sphere and fall into that below,
if we may justly say that the votaries of whist are below the
worshippers of Terpsichore. Of the pious set much needs not be
said, as their light has never been hid under a bushel. In spite of
hunt-clubs and assembly-rooms, they are the predominant power. They
live on the fat of the land. They are a strong, unctuous, moral,
uncharitable people. The men never cease making money for themselves,
nor the women making slippers for their clergymen.

But though the residents at Littlebath are thus separated as a
rule into three classes, the classes do not always keep themselves
accurately to their divisions. There will be some who own a double
allegiance. One set will tread upon another. There will be those who
can hardly be placed in either. Miss Baker was among this latter
number: on principle, she was an admirer of the great divine on the
domestic comfort of whose toes so many fair fingers had employed
themselves; but, nevertheless, she was not averse to a rubber in its
mildest forms. Caroline did not play whist, but she occasionally gave
way to the allurement prevalent among the younger female world of
Littlebath.

Miss Baker lived in lodgings, and Bertram therefore went to an hotel.
Had she been mistress of the largest house in Littlebath, he would
hardly have ventured to propose himself as a guest. The "Plough,"
however, is a good inn, and he deposited himself there. The hunting
season at Littlebath had commenced, and Bertram soon found that had
he so wished he could with but little trouble have provided himself
with a stud in the coffee-room of his hotel.

He had intended to call on Miss Baker on the evening of his arrival;
but he had not actually told her that he would do so: and though he
walked down to the terrace in which she lived, his courage failed him
when he got there, and he would not go in. "It may be that evening
calls are not the thing at Littlebath," he said to himself; and so he
walked back to his hotel.