Merely to ride to hounds is, of course, not sufficiently distinctive.
Many women do that, without losing at all the ordinary characteristics
of women. She must ride bare-backed, she must understand a horse's
ailments and his points, she must trudge (in the constant society of
men) over fallows and through turnips in pursuit of partridges, she
must be able to talk learnedly of guns, of powders, and of shot, she
must possess a gun of her own, and think she knows how to use it, she
must own a retriever, and herself make him submissive by the frequent
application of a silver-headed dog-whip.

These attainments are her ideals of earthly bliss, and she sets out
to realise them with a terrible perseverance. Her father, of course,
knows but little of sport. He is, however, afflicted with the ordinary
desire to shine as a sportsman, and as a host of sportsmen. He
stocks his coverts with game, and invites large shooting parties to
stay with him. He himself takes to a gun as a hen might take to the
water; although, as his daughter contemptuously expresses it, he is
calculated to miss a hippopotamus at ten yards, he seems to imagine,
if one may be permitted to judge from the wild frequency of his shots,
that it is the easiest thing in the world to hit a pheasant or a
partridge flying at ten times that distance. From such a father the
Manly Maiden easily secures permission, first of all, to walk with the
men while they are shooting, and subsequently to carry a gun herself.

And now the difficulties of the situation begin to make themselves
felt, not, indeed, by her, for she remains sublimely unconscious to
the end, but by the men who are compelled to associate with her upon
her ventures. No man will ever hesitate to rebuke another for carrying
his gun in such a way as to threaten danger; but, when a lady allows
him to inspect the inside of her loaded gun-barrels, or shoots down