South of the Tweed, September invitations are usually given for three or four days, from Tuesday till Saturday; married couples, young ladies, and young men, are all asked, and the ladies find amusement in lawn-tennis, or in attending or assisting at some neighbouring bazaar or fancy fair, as in this month county bazaars are very popular, and the visitors at one house lend their services in conjunction with the visitors at another, to hold stalls at a bazaar got up by a third influential lady; and thus the stalls are well stocked, and the fashionable stall-holders give an impetus to the whole affair.
Ladies see very little of the gentlemen between breakfast and dinner. The shooters start about eleven, and seldom return much before seven.
When it is dark at four, those who prefer ladies' society and tea to the smoking-room and billiards, make themselves presentable and join the ladies.
As regards the Etiquette of Visiting at Bachelors' Houses.—It is thoroughly understood that ladies should be accompanied by their husbands, and young ladies by their father and mother, or by a married couple with whom they are on terms of great intimacy, in which case the married lady acts as chaperon to the young ladies. Young ladies cannot stay at the house of a bachelor unless chaperoned by a married lady, or by a female relative of their host. A widow and her daughter could of course join a party of ladies staying at a bachelor's house, or stay on a visit to him were he alone, or entertaining bachelor friends.
When a bachelor gives a country-house party, and nominally does the honours himself, occasionally one of the married ladies of the party tacitly takes the lead.
The position of a young widower is similar to that of a bachelor as regards society. Later in life, the contrary is the case; a widower with grown-up daughters gives entertainments for them, and the eldest daughter does the honours, thus reducing the position again to that of host and hostess.
CHAPTER XXXVI
HUNTING AND SHOOTING
Ladies in the Hunting-Field.—There is no arena better fitted to display good riding on the part of women than the hunting-field, and no better opportunity for the practice of this delightful accomplishment and for its thorough enjoyment. It is urged, however, that it argues cruelty of disposition and unwomanly feeling to join in the pursuit of a poor, miserable, hunted fox, and worse still to be in at the death, and that women are liable to be carried away by the enthusiasm of the hour to applaud and to witness what they would otherwise shrink from. This argument has a certain weight, and deters many from actually hunting who would otherwise join in the sport, and they make a compromise by regularly attending the meets, and even witnessing a throw-off of a fox-break covert. Every strong point that a rider possesses is brought out in the field. The canter in the Row, the trot through the country-lanes, or the long country ride are very feeble substitutes for the intense enjoyment experienced when taking part in a good run; the excitement felt and shared in by the whole field exhilarates and stimulates, and renders fatigue a thing out of the question, not to be thought of until the homeward ride is well over.