"Of course not! The idea! But, seeing your skirt so very short, I should have guessed you were a sportswoman and killed the birds yourself!" and she sniffed ominously.
"Do birds get killed with a skirt?" Miss Springle asked, pertly. She hates Mrs. Dodd. They were neighbors In Liverpool, originally. "I thought you had to shoot at them?"
Mrs. Dodd snorted.
"You will get awfully muddy, Mrs. Dodd, in your long cashmere," Miss Springle continued. "And Mr. Dodd told me, when I met him coming from the bath this morning, to be sure not to wear any colors—they frighten the birds. I am certain he will object to that yellow paradise-plume in your hat."
Mrs. Dodd looked ready to fight.
"Mr. Dodd had better talk to me about my hat!" she said, growing purple in the face. "I call all these modern sporting-costumes indecent, and when I was a girl I should have been whipped for coming out shooting in the things you have got on, Miss Springle!"
"Really! you don't say so!" said Miss Springle, innocently, "Why, I never heard they shot birds in Liverpool, Mrs. Dodd."
I interfered. The expression of my elder guest's face was becoming apoplectic.
"Let us get into the brake," I said.
Lady Wakely sat next me.