as it were, oxygen from the air." This
oxygen is the only stimulating drink we can take with lasting advantage
to ourselves for the purpose of invigorating our strength. It is the
wine and spirit of life, an abundance of which Nature has supplied us
with ready-made. If you are low-spirited, drink oxygen. Take active
exercise in the open air and inhale it. When next you see a lawn tennis
player hard at a strenuous game, remember he or she is not necessarily
overstraining or injuring health, but taking long, deep draughts of
oxygen, imbibing the wine and spirit of life and laying up a store of
vigour in readiness for the varied experiences of life.

Of all games lawn tennis is the one most suited to girls. Its claims are
many and potent. It is strenuous and very hard work, but if not overdone
it is not too taxing for the average girl. The exercise depends
naturally upon the nature of the game played and the players engaged,
from the championships to the garden-party patball game. The greater the
knowledge of the game the greater the enjoyment and benefit derived from
it, and there is really no reason why a girl should not excel at the
game and therefore thoroughly appreciate and enjoy it. It is not
physical and brute strength that is wanted so much as scientific
application--finesse, skill, and delicacy of touch, all of which women
are just as capable of exercising as men.

I am well aware that if you compare the lady champion of any year with
any first-class man of the same year you will find a great disparity
between their actual play. That is to say, the first-class man would be
able to give the lady champion thirty or even more in order to have a
close struggle. I have often played Mr. R.F. Doherty at the tremendous
odds of receive half-forty, and have not always been returned the winner
at that! I wonder sometimes why there is this pronounced discrepancy.
Garments may make a little difference, but they do not account for it
all. I think perhaps that man's stronger physique, naturally greater
activity, and severer strokes prevent the girl from playing her own
game. She has to be nearly always on the defensive, and thus plays with
less accuracy and power.

Another claim lawn tennis has for girls is that it is not an expensive
game. It is more or less within the reach of all, rich or poor. It can
be played on one's own lawn or at any of the numerous clubs situated all
over the world, or even nowadays in some of the pu