50 HUNTING AND SFOBTING NOTES. 



not know where to have a fence, and because she allows- 

 her horse to go with reckless mdifference at all alike ? 

 Is she never to fall, only because, if she does not make a 

 mistake, she has no power to recover herself? How 

 lately we have seen the reverse, and not with an indifferent 

 horsewoman, but with one of the best in Leicestershire- 

 There is a trusting confidence about a woman in most 

 things, which is one of her greatest charms, but when 

 extended to an unwarrantable length with horseflesh it 

 becomes a dangerous attribute. Perhaps she makes an 

 unflattering comparison between us and her four-footed 

 favourite ; she may be right. But let me suggest that,, 

 if her confidence in man has been misplaced, it should 

 make her something wary of such unlimited trust in 

 anything. The pitcher goes often to the well but comes- 

 back broken at last. And what a terrible smash it is- 

 when it does come ! If you handsome women only knew 

 the number of hearts that are beating for you every time 

 you indulge in what you call pleasure bear compassion 

 for our feelings would curb your aspirations, and confine 

 you like unruly graduates, to gates. If ladies will hunt,, 

 let them have a pack of hounds and a country of their 

 own. A lionne is a terrible animal ; the first step to 

 adopting her nature is the pursuit of the fox. If Miss- 

 Kegelspiel chooses to ride like a centaur, and talk like a 

 cabman, let her ; it's nothing to anyone. Do you, young 

 ladies, pity the sorrows of a suffering sportsman, who is 

 wellnigh driven from the field by your temerity. Do I 

 speak strongly on the subject ? Pardon me. I have a 

 family of daughters who would all like just to see the 

 hounds meet. I only hope they take in Baili/s Magazine.'' 

 Forgive me, ladies, if 'Xiy " Gentleman in Black" has 

 hit too hard ! We know that in Shropshire the Lady 

 Dianas far outnumber the Bella Smiths, and that the 

 quarter of a century since he wrote has done much to 

 tame the savage minds of the male sex in the hunting 

 field ; and that, while admitting the soft impeachment 

 that may come home to us now and again, that ladies 

 occasionally are a, dread and a terror to us in the hunting 

 field, how often, on the other hand, are we not constrained 

 to admire and welcome them, even when not riding in the 

 lanes, and how much they tend to humanise us in this^ 



