LADY FOXHUNTERS 291 



wheels — starving in a carriage on a cold winter's day, 

 jolting about country roads, pitching from one side of 

 the vehicle to the other, wondering which ditch they 

 will go into. People in carriages seem out of their 

 element altogether ; they look as if they did not belong 

 to the concern, and have very much the same sort of 

 appearance that a man in top-boots and spurs would 

 have in a ball-room. Let ladies come on horseback, 

 especially if they are pretty, for then the gentlemen 

 can make up to them through their horses, just as 

 they sometimes make up to gentlemen through the 

 gentlemen's dogs. Moreover, having to "attend to 

 the ladies" is an excellent excuse for any "coffee- 

 houser" who wants to cut home when they find. 

 Having then cantered to the meet, and seen old 

 reynard start, let our fair friends canter home to 

 luncheon, "with such appetites as they may" — 

 generally pretty good ones, we should think. 



One of our objections to ladies hunting, though we 

 do not know that we have ever seen it taken before, 

 is that it deprives gentlemen of the agreeable change 

 and variety which their society makes in the evening. 

 Without intending the slightest disrespect to the fair 

 sex, we may say that it is possible to have "too much 

 of a good thing," and, if we exhaust all our jokes and 

 small-talk in a morning, it is very likely we shall be 

 " high and dry " in the evening. It is this sort of 

 over-communication that makes daily hunt dinners 

 such irksome, tedious things. You sit down with 

 the same men that you have been riding about with 

 all the day to a hash of the same conversation that 

 you have been indulging in before. We have all 

 our fancies and ideas as to what is most pleasant 

 and agreeable, but to our mind the good dinner and 

 cheerful female society of the evening is no small 

 enhancer of the pleasures of the morning. If, then, 

 the ladies have been at the meet, they can take part 

 and interest in the hunting part of the conversation, 



