tion.
In one place I said: "If Miss Harding is beautiful enough to overcome
the handicap which always attaches to the golf duffer, she can give
Venus all sorts of odds and beat her handily. I have yet to see the
woman who shows to advantage with a golf regalia."

I take that back, also.

To see a woman raise a golf club with a jerky, uneven stroke, and come
down on the helpless turf with the head of it, as if beating a carpet,
has always given me a chill and a sensation of wild rage, but there is
something about the way Miss Harding does this which is actually
artistic. There are combinations of discords which make for perfect
harmony, and it is the same with the little eccentricities of Miss
Harding's swing.

[Illustration: "There is no law to compel a man to play golf"]

The poise of the head and shoulders, the sweep of the arms, and the
undulations of the figure seem to take on an added charm from what might
be called the "graceful crudity" of her stroke. I do not know why this
is so, but it is a fact.

I shall never forget the attempt I once made to instruct my sister in
the rudimentary principles of the swing of a golf club. She was a pretty
girl; bright, lively and graceful, but after I had given her two lessons
we were so mad at one another that we did not speak for weeks. It
seemingly was impossible to make her distinguish between the back sweep
and the follow through. She would persist in coming down on the tee with
the face of her club, but at that she made a splendid marriage, and is a
happy wife and mother.

Miss Harding will make a first-class golf player, and I told her so.

"Do you really think so?" she asked, after several swings, most of which
would have hit the ball.

"I certainly do," I declared. "All that you need is the constant advice
of someone who is thoroughly familiar with the technique of the game."

She utterly ignored this hint.

"My one ambition," she said, with a bewitching little laugh, rather
plaintive, I thought, "is to drive a ball far enough so that there will
be some difficulty in finding it. It must be jolly to hit a ball
straight out so far that you cannot tell within yards just where it is.
Do you know," and she looked really sad, "I have never lost a ball in my
life?"

"How remarkable!" I exclaimed. "I have known Carter to lose a dozen at
one game."

"Indeed! I think Mr. Carter is a perfectly splendid player," she
declared. "I was watching him one day last week. H