The MODEL FAST LADY is not particularly attached to dancing. She waltzes as if she had made a wager to go round the room one hundred and fifty times in five minutes and a quarter. If any one is pushed over by the rapidity of her Olga revolutions, she does not stop, but merely laughs, and "hopes no limbs are broken."
By the bye, if she has a weakness, it is on the score--rather a long one--of wagers. She is always betting. It must be mentioned, however, that she is most honourable in the payment of her debts. She would sell her _Black Bess_ sooner than levant.
THE MODEL FAST LADY has, at best, but a superficial knowledge of the art of flirting. Compliments, she calls "stuff"; and sentiment "namby-pamby nonsense." She likes a person to be sensible; and has no idea of being made a fool of.
At a picnic she is invaluable. When your tumbler is empty, she'll take Champagne with you--that is to say, if you're not too proud. You may as well fill her glass; she has no notion of being cheated. Here's better luck to you! and to enforce it, she runs the point of her parasol into your side.
She dislikes smoking? Not _she_ indeed; she's rather fond of it. In fact, she likes a "weed" herself occasionally, and to convince you, will take a whiff or two. Her forefinger is not much needle-marked, and she laughs at Berlin wool, and all such fiddle faddle. She has a pianoforte, but really she has no patience to practise. She can play a short tune on the cornet-à-piston.
Literature is a sealed pleasure to her, though it is but fair to state she reads _Bell's Life_, and has a few volumes in her bedroom of the _Sporting Magazine_. She knows there was a horse of the name of _Byron_.
The FAST LADY rather avoids children. If a baby is put into her hands, she says, "Pray, somebody, come and take this thing, I'm afraid of dropping it." She prefers the society of men, too, to that of her own sex.
Her costume is not regulated much by the fashions, and she is always the first to come down when the ladies have gone upstairs to change their dress.
Her greatest accomplishment is to drive. With the whip in one hand and the reins in the other, and a key-bugle behind, she would not exchange places with the Queen herself.