lunch
time it was plain "Val," and now it is "Harry." I do call it bad taste,
don't you, Mamma? and she isn't half so pretty in broad daylight, and I
don't like her at all now. Only I can't help laughing at Lady
Westaway's face when "Phyllis" (that is Mrs. Westaway's name) says
anything especially vulgar; Lady Westaways shudders, and takes a huge
sniff at her smelling salts. She keeps them always with her in a long
gold-topped bottle, and she has to use them almost every few minutes
when Mrs. Westaway is in the room.

The Horse Show was rather nice; it is held in the park fairly close,
and most of us strolled there in the morning before lunch to see the
judging. Lord Valmond joined us, I was walking with Lord George Lane
(you remember he was one of the Eleven at Nazeby). I was in a very good
temper, Mamma, and we had been laughing at everything we said. He is
quite a nice idiot, but, when Lord Valmond came, of course I talked as
stiffly as possibly, and presently Lord George told him that he was
singularly backward in copybook maxims, and that there was one he ought
to write out and commit to memory, and it began with "Two's Company,"
upon which Lord Valmond stalked on in a rage.

The seats at the show were very hard boards, and the sun made one
awfully drowsy; but about half-an-hour before lunch Lord Valmond came
up again, and asked me if I should not like to go for a turn. I thought
I had better, so as not to get cramp. He said he had been afraid he
would never get the chance of speaking to me, I was always so
surrounded. I told him I had only come now because of the cramp. I am
quite determined, Mamma, not to unbend to him at all. I was not once
agreeable, or anything but stiff and snubbing, and I am sure he has
never been treated like that before, but it is awfully hard work
keeping it up all the time, and when we got in to lunch I was quite
tired.

[Sidenote: _On the Lake_]

There were numbers of people at the show in the afternoon, and all in
their best clothes. Lady Grace Fenton was showing two of her hunters,
and she kept shouting to the grooms, and I did not think it was very
attractive behaviour. She takes such strides you would think her muslin
dress would split. I don't know why it is that so many people in the
country are ugly and weather-beaten, and all their clothes hanging
wrong.

Except the house party here, and a few from other big places, there was
not a pretty person to be seen. We had a spec