crupulous veteran. Her deftness in taking a step or two forward in the
centre and so putting the fast wing off side; her air of sporting
acquiescence touched with astonishment when a penalty is given against her
for obstruction; her resolution in jumping in to hit a young bowler off
his length; the trouble she has with her shoe-lace when her opponent is
nervous; the suddenness with which every now and again her usually
deliberate second service will follow her first; the slight pucker in her
eyebrows when she picks up a hand full of spades; the pluck with which she
throws herself on the ball when there is nothing else for it; her
dignified bonhomie in the dressing room! We all know Lady Ann and her
tricks, but nothing can be proved against her and she continues to play
for the best clubs.

"In this story Lady Ann is playing the social game, and it is a tribute to
the skill of Mr. McKenna that at the end we hope that the Princess will be
sufficiently curious about her new 'frame and setting' to continue her
visits.... We have used the word 'story' because Lady Ann reports her
machinations while they are in progress and we are a little nervous about
the issue. Her main service, however, lies in the pictures she draws of
her own highly placed relatives and of a number of people who at house
parties and elsewhere may help ladies of title to make both ends meet.
Chief among them is her son Will, who even as seen through her partial
eyes, appears a very dishonest, paltry boy. Her blind devotion to him
humanises both her shrewdness and her selfishness. It is for his sake that
she separates her niece from the fine young soldier she is in love with
and that she almost succeeds in providing the King's Proctor with the
materials for an intervention that would secure to him the estates and
title of his fox-hunting uncle. There is always a plain tale to put her
down and always the friend of proved discretion is left with the
impression that the tale is the invention of malice; at least we suppose
she must be, for Lady Ann is allowed by people to whom she has done one
injury to remain in a position to do them another. The difficult medium
employed by Mr. McKenna entitles him, however, to count on the
co-operation of the reader; and it is to be accorded the more readily that
to it we owe the felicity of having her own account of the steps she took
to prevent an attractive but expensive widow from running away with her
husband, and of t