If the nymph condescends to any game at all, it is croquet, at which she is inexorably severe. She knows nothing of the little weakness which makes her elder sisters overlook the patent spooning of the favourite curate, even though he is opposed to them--nothing of the tender favouritism which pushes on an awkward partner by deeds of helping outside the law. The nymph, who has no weakness nor tenderness of that kind, knows only the game; and the game has not elastic boundaries. Therefore she is inflexible in her justice to one side and the other. Is it not the game? she says when reproached with being disagreeable and unamiable. But even croquet is slow to the nymph, who has been known to handle a bat not discreditably, and who is an adept at firing at a mark with real powder and ball. If she lives near a lake, a river, or the sea, she is first-rate at boating, can feather her oar and back water with the skill of a veteran oarsman, and can reef a sail or steer close without the slightest hesitation or nervousness. She is also a famous swimmer, and takes the water like a duck; and at an ordinary summer seaside resort, if by chance she ever profanes herself by showing off there, she attracts a crowd of beach-loungers to watch her feats far outside the safe barrier of the bathing-machines. She is a great walker, wherever she lives. If a mountaineer, she is a clever cragswoman, making it a point of honour to go to the top of the most difficult and dangerous mountains in her neighbourhood, and coaxing her brothers to let her join them and their friends in expeditions which require both nerve and strength.