Her manner with men was perfectly frank and open, equally devoid of reticence or coquetry. She called them all by their Christian names if they were commoners, by their titles if they were lords. She answered at once when addressed as "Kitty," or "Old Lady," or "Stunner;" by all of which appellations she was known. She would lay her whip lightly across the shoulders of any particular friend as a token of recognition at the meet; would smoke a cigarette on her way home after the kill; and always carried sherry and sandwiches in a silver combination of flask and box. Her grammar was shaky, and her aspirate occasionally misplaced; she never read any thing but _Bell's Life_ and books on farriery, and she laughed a loud, ringing, resonant shout; but her speech was always free from bad words, and no man ever tried a _double entendre_ or a blasphemy twice in her presence. Living the odd strange life she did, defiant of all society's prejudices, it was yet strange that even London slander had left her unassailed. They did say that she was very much taken by Bob Mayo's sabre-scar when he returned from the Crimea, and that Barker, the steeple-chase rider, half gentleman, half jock, was engaged to her; but nothing came of either of these two reports. Early in her London career, very soon after she came to town, and when men were first beginning to inquire who was the dashing horsewoman who rode such splendid cattle with such pluck and skill, De Blague, the Queen's messenger, assumed to know all about her, and at Limmer's, one night, threw out certain hints by no means uncomplimentary to himself, and eked out with many nods and winks; but two days after that, as De Blague, with two other Foreign-Office men, was leaning over the rails in the Row, Miss Mellon rode up, and denouncing him as a "bragging hound," slashed him with her by no means light riding-whip severely over the head and shoulders. After that day no one cared to say much against Kate Mellon.