be attended by anxious liope and apprehensive 

 forebodings. But, worse than this, let not the fair 

 one fancy that the interest she creates carries with 

 it also admiration. ^Tis true, they say, that " pity 

 is akin to love." In one sense, perhaps, it is ; but, 

 in another, let her not fancy that pity is akin 

 to captivation. No, as a blunt fox-hunter, let me 

 tell her the homely truth : the man who affirms 

 how far more lovely is the " drooping lily " than 

 " the blushing rose," where he has neither design 

 nor gallantry to induce him to mask his genuine 

 thoughts, will tell the plain truth in merely 

 speaking of her as a sickly girl. 



If only one such fair being was roused from 

 the hallucination of her ideas and infatuation of 

 her pursuits, and was to let her willing steed 

 carry her where the enlivening cry of hounds 

 would give a fresh stimulus to thoughts and 

 feelings blase of the studied concord of instru- 

 mental music, and where faces beaming with 

 animation would show the difference between 

 real and assumed gaiety, there would she catch 

 the pleasing infection, and bracing air and health- 

 ful exercise would soon restore the buoyancy of 

 spirits and elasticity of step, the natural attributes 

 of youth and health. One, aye only one, such 

 achievement among the many would be enough 

 to immortalise the hunting-field for ever. 



On however precarious a footing an autlior 



B 2 



