It was the rule on these occasions for the ladies and gentlemen to dine apart, so that the dinner might make a time of comparative ease and rest for both. Indeed, the gentlemen had a set of archery stories about the epicurism of the ladies, who had somehow been reported to show a revolting masculine judgment in venison, even asking for the fat--a proof of the frightful rate at which corruption might go on in women, but for severe social restraint, and every year the amiable Lord Brackenshaw, who was something of a _gourmet_, mentioned Byron's opinion that a woman should never be seen eating,--introducing it with a confidential--"The fact is" as if he were for the first time admitting his concurrence in that sentiment of the refined poet.

It was the rule on these occasions for the ladies and gentlemen to dine apart. 