206 THE HUNTING FIELD 



draw people from home. Have we a country reader 

 unoppressed with the mental incubus of a three days' 

 visit to a stupid country house, where the good people, 

 though desperately glad to see you, are high and dry 

 for conversation before it is time to dress for the first 

 day's dinner? Suppose it a first visit, entailing the 

 magnificence of the "best of everything," and the 

 usual pressing and urging of people for miles around 

 to meet. The scene opens in the drawing-room, with 

 the usual apologies for the smallness of the party, and 

 the recital of a long list of invited friends who have 

 been too shrewd to be victimised. Mr. and Mrs. 

 Gabble were asked, and had promised to come, but 

 unfortunately Mrs. Gabble's mother had arrived from 

 Boulogne-sur-Mer, and would neither accompany 

 them nor hear of their leaving her. Captain and Mrs. 

 Smith were both laid up of bad colds, or would have 

 been there, and Mrs. Buggins had just got her eleven 

 boys home from school, and could not leave them, 

 and Miss Toby and her brother had just gone on a 

 visit to their rich uncle's ; and so they go on through 

 a long list of shuffles and apologies, ending with the 

 usual asseveration that it is " a wretched country for 

 neighbours — not such another bad one in England " 

 — the common denunciation, in short, of all unlucky 

 party pressers. The victim listens with polite com- 

 placency, inwardly chuckling, perhaps, at escaping so 

 many bores, until his satisfaction gradually changes 

 into astonishment at what has brought him there 

 himself. Some men are so dense as never to re- 

 member that mammas consider it part of their duty 

 to bring all the single men to their houses to give 

 their daughters a chance, and think because they have 

 no fancy for any of the girls, that the girls cannot 

 have any design upon them. Innocent youths ! 

 There is not a man goes into a house where there 

 are girls, without being more or less bespoke or 

 assigned to some one or other of them. 



