Janet hesitated for a moment; she saw disapproval on Lady Kathleen's face, and took her cue from her.
"I don't think I'm strong enough," she said. "Shooting with firearms seems just the one accomplishment which a girl can't manage; at least, I mean an ordinary girl."
Lady Kathleen clapped her hands.
"Hear to you, Mayflower," she said. "Right you are; I go with you, my dear. Firearms are downright dangerous things; and if I had my will, Biddy should never touch them. Do you hear me, squire?"
"Pooh!" said the squire; "what harm do they do? A girl ought to know how to defend herself. As to the danger, if she uses her common sense there is not any. I grant you that a foolish girl oughtn't to touch firearms; but give me a sensible, strong-hearted colleen, and I'll provide that she handles a gun with the precision and care of the best sportsman in the land. Biddy here can bring down a bird on the wing with any fellow who comes to shoot in the autumn, and I don't suppose there is Biddy's match in the county for womanly graces either."
"You spoil her, Dennis," said Lady Kathleen. "It's well she's been sent to school to learn some of her failings, for she'd never find them out here. Not but that I'm as proud as Punch of her myself. For all that, however, I'd leave out the shooting; and I'm very much obliged to little Mayflower for upholding me."
"You haven't a wrist for a gun," said the squire, glancing at Janet's small hands. "Your vocations lie in another direction. You must favor me with a song some evening. I guess somehow by the look of your face that you are musical."
"I adore music," said Janet with enthusiasm.
"That's right. Can you do the 'Melodies'?"
"The 'Melodies'?"