of those around her, and go safely through brake and brier, over
ditch and dyke, and meet with a score of knights around her who
will be willing and able to give her eager aid should the chance
of any moment require it.

There are two accusations which the more demure portion of the
world is apt to advance against hunting ladies, or, as I should
better say, against hunting as an amusement for ladies. It leads
to flirting, they say, to flirting of a sort which mothers would
not approve; and it leads to fast habits, to ways and thoughts
which are of the horse horsey, and of the stable, strongly
tinged with the rack and manger. The first of these accusations
is, I think, simply made in ignorance. As girls are brought up
among us now-a-days, they may all flirt, if they have a mind to
do so; and opportunities for flirting are much better and much
more commodious in the ball-room, in the drawing-room, or in the
park, than they are in the hunting-field. Nor is the work in hand
of a nature to create flirting tendencies, as, it must be
admitted, is the nature of the work in hand when the floors are
waxed and the fiddles are going. And this error has sprung from,
or forms part of, another, which is wonderfully common among non
- hunting folk. It is very widely thought by many, who do not, as
a rule, put themselves in opposition to the amusements of the
world, that hunting in itself is a wicked thing; that hunting men
are fast, given to unclean living and bad ways of life; that they
usually go to bed drunk, and that they go about the world roaring
hunting cries, and disturbing the peace of the innocent
generally. With such men, who could wish that wife, sister, or
daughter should associate? But I venture to say that this
opinion, which I believe to be common, is erroneous, and that men