As fresh bevies were flushed and the birds scattered themselves over a wide area, the sportsmen became separated, or hunted in twos and threes.
Miss Noble and Miss Crabb watched this eager skirmish line through their glasses, keeping up, meantime, a running discussion of the incidents as they occurred, with true feminine lapses, now and then, into criticism of whatever chanced to offend their notions of how a shoot should be conducted.
"I hope Mr. Reynolds will get outrageously beaten," exclaimed Miss Noble, "I really do."
"Why?" asked the editor.
"Because I do," was the response so perfectly intelligible and satisfactory to all women.
"Oh," said Miss Crabb, "you have a grudge, have you?"
"He promised me he would teach me how to shoot," Cordelia laughingly responded, "and, like all men, he has not kept his word."
"There! did you see that?" cried Miss Crabb still intently surveying the distant shooters.
"No, what was it?"
"Mr. Reynolds killed a bird that Mr. Beresford had missed and then turned and killed one that the English gentleman—what's his name?—had failed on! It was lovely—I like that!"