But the skittish propensities of Miss Kittenish do not confine themselves to these mild sports. She is of opinion that her personal charms are peculiarly attractive to men, and it is impossible to talk to her without becoming conscious that she is endeavouring to construe your conversation into a flirtation. She really imagines that she is in a chronic state of defence against siege from our sex, and the various ruses of primitive coquetry by which she endeavours to bring on a general engagement are amusing to watch for a little while, though their sameness soon palls. She perpetually asserts her determination never to marry, until one begins naturally to wonder why she finds it necessary to be so emphatic. I believe there is sufficient chivalry still left among us to protect Miss Kittenish from being forced to any step so avowedly repugnant to her feelings. Yet she will take pains to tell you what pretty things this young man said to her, what attention that old man paid her, and to insinuate that no party is really considered complete unless she graces it. Her enthusiastic eagerness for entertainment is perfectly amazing; offer her tickets for anything, and she will accept them, be it only an amateur theatrical performance, or a dramatic recital at a local institute. Of course, if she be the happy possessor of gratuitous orders for the theatre, she is almost as proud as if she knew an actor off the stage, which, I need hardly say, is considered, in suburban circles, a very high distinction. Miss Kittenish still looks to attain to this, however, for a friend of the curate’s with whom, of course, she is associated in Sunday-school matters, has promised to bring to their next social gathering an actor who is a member of his angling club. Though he is not perhaps a leading actor, and he still lives domestically with his wife and children, he did once play “Claude Melnotte,” and is now a low comedian at a West-end theatre, so that Miss Kittenish will be quite justified in talking with casual impressiveness of her new acquaintance, when the introduction is an accomplished fact. She and her sisters will lionise him, and make him play games, and expect him to do all sorts of funny things, so that their friends will go away and tell everybody how they met Shoppy, the actor, at the Kittenishes’, and how amusing he was, and how he told them all about “behind the scenes,” the way he studied his own parts and taught all the other actors theirs, and showed the dramatist how to make his play a success, the manager how to produce it, and the leading actress how to act, and then said such clever things about the injustice of the critics. Miss Kittenish has her ambitions and her hero-worship, you see, and she always says that her proper vocation is the stage. Perhaps she will take to it yet, who knows? She is for ever volatile, and she never tires of playing charades.