hunt? A little archery, perhaps, set off the figure to advantage; straightforward skating—but no figures, please—promoted grace, and possibly bowls might be permitted, though this would not be desirable. But the idea of a woman waving a cricket bat or a golfclub, or actually letting off a horrible gun at a pheasant, or being seen at a billiard table, or tearing along the road astride a motor bicycle, would have seemed to women of that day the height of indecency. Nobody could wish to return to those old days, though the question may arise, for girls as well as for boys, whether in this country we do not pay too much attention to athletics. I do not believe that in girls’ schools athletic efficiency assumes the abnormal importance which it assumes in the public schools for boys. Women, for one thing, do not particularly worship athletic skill in their own sex, and, for another, they have other little vanities of their own to keep this particular vanity in a reasonable place. Still, there is a type of girl in England who thinks of nothing but games and recreations from the time of getting up to the time of going to bed. We could do very well indeed without her. You will see her in the morning setting out soon after breakfast in a gaudy woollen jumper, a short tweed skirt and the thickest brogues she can find, for her daily round of golf. She always tries to find a man to play with, by the way, and imitates with exaggeration every trick of the masculine game. After lunch it is either another round of golf or a spin in the motor, if she can drive herself. Then hey! for a colossal tea and immediate bridge with innumerable cigarettes till dinner. After dinner it must be more bridge, billiards or dancing. She talks of nothing but games or sport and men, and she thinks of nothing else. If she hunts, she looks down her nose at those who don’t; if she favours winter sports, she has a poor notion of those who cannot rush off to Switzerland as Christmas comes round. And whatever she does, she is not a true sportsman, being far too keenly concerned in her own advantage. She will manœuvre for the most accomplished partner, whether it be at tennis or bridge, and, if he be a man, she will ignore all other deficiencies on his part, so long as he will help her to win and will gain her the kudos of appearing remarkably accomplished in the public eye. She knows nothing of the comradeship of sport, and will unblushingly give her partner at the morning’s golf the cold shoulder at the evening’s dance if some backboneless elegant, with as little muscle as he has character, happens to show her off with greater effect at the jazz or the fox-trot. She has never been known to play for her side, to make light of a partner’s mistakes or to take a beating cheerfully. Games, in her creed, are meant for the display of herself, and she holds any partner who fails to assist her in this aim as simply contemptible. In