46 FACT AGAIXST FICTION. 



Heaveiij the S2)irit imbued by Nature lias enabled 

 me to deliQ,'lit more in the association with and 

 in the love of animals and birds tlian in their 

 violent pursuit and noisy destruction ; and though 

 blows and battle at times may lead man away, and 

 ma}^ have disturbed me, still one sunny hour of 

 peaceful love and gentleness is worth an age of 

 loud success. 



In this, the year of grace 1871', when so many 

 more ladies are accomplished horsewomen than 

 were so wdien I first kept foxhounds, there are a 

 great number of ladies to be seen with hounds at 

 Melton and in other hunting countries than there 

 were in years long gone by ; and, wluit is more, they 

 ride so gracefully and wxll, that the hunt, which 

 once was deemed a scrambling, bruising, rash 

 pursuit, becomes, through their method, grace, and 

 joresence, a study of admirable perfection. Many 

 years ago a }'oung lady at Cheltenham used to ride 

 so well, and safely too, that timid male riders would 

 purposely lose the hounds rather than see her go so 

 nuich better over the Cheltenham stone walls than 

 they did. She afforded to the looker-on in those 

 days a novelty. The accomplishment is no novelty 

 tiow, for go where you will, in any shire, you 



