It is naturally during the London Season that the life of the Hurlingham Girl is at its fullest and best. On week-day mornings she is a frequent attendant in the Row, the means of her father being apparently sufficient to provide her with a sleek and showy Park hack and an irreproachable groom. Thence she hastens home to rest and dawdle until the hour arrives for luncheon, to which meal she has invited the youth who happens to be temporarily dancing attendance upon her, for it is understood in many houses that luncheon is an open meal for which no formal invitation from a parent is necessary. In the afternoon there is always a bazaar, an amateur concert, an exhibition, a fashionable _matinée_ or a Society tea-party to be visited. For the evening there are dinners, and theatres, and an endless succession of dances, at which the flowers, the suppers, and the general decorations possess as much or as little variety as the conversation of those who overcrowd the rooms to an accompaniment of dance-music that may once have been new. [Illustration] But of course there are distractions. Now and again Society seeks relief from its load of care by emigrating _en masse_ for the day to a race-meeting at Sandown or Kempton. There the Hurlingham Girl is as much at home as though she were native to the spot, sprung, as it were, from the very turf itself. The interest she takes or pretends to take in racing is something astounding. For in truth she knows nothing about horses, their points, their pedigrees, or their performances. Yet she chatters about them and their races, their jockeys, their owners, the weight they carry, their tempers, and the state of the betting market, with a glib assurance which is apt to put to shame even those of her male companions who have devoted a lifetime to the earnest study of these supreme matters. In imitation of these gentlemen she will assure those who care to listen to her, that she has had a real bad day, not having managed to get on to a single winner, and that if it hadn't been for a fluke in backing _Tantivy_, one, two, three, she would have been reduced to a twopence in the pound condition of beggary. She will then forget her imaginary losses, and will listen with amusement and interest while a smooth-faced lad criticises with as much severity as he can command in the intervals of his cigarettes the dress, appearance, and general character of a lady whom she happens to dislike. On the following day she will visit Hurlingham in order to be looked at as a spectator at a polo match, in which she has no interest whatever. After this she is entertained at dinner together with a select party, which includes the young married lady who is her bosom friend and occasional chaperon, by a middle-aged dandy of somewhat shady antecedents, but of great wealth and undoubted position. On Sunday mornings she may not always go to Church, but she makes up for this neglect by the perfect regularity of her attendance at Church parade.