1% THE HUNTING FIELD 



{nciibiis 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 victimized. 

 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 boj's 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 neigh- 

 bours — not such another bad one in England " — the common 

 denunciation, in short, of all unlucky party pressers. The 

 victim listens with polite complacency, inwardl}' 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 remember 

 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. 



But we must get on with our visit, or we shall make our 

 sketch as long as the infliction itself. If a dinner passes heavily, 



