A letter about an archery meeting, by Louisa Fairholme

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this letter, written in 1862, a young woman tells her friend about her first archery competition, held in the grounds of a country house.

The Rectory, Thursday

Dearest Bella,

You will be pleased to hear that I have not disgraced the family, though I came very near it. The summer meeting of the Hadley Archers was held on Tuesday in the park at Hadley Court, and above sixty ladies shot, each in a uniform of green cloth with a little hat and a white feather, which Mama says made us look like a regiment of parakeets.

The targets stood sixty yards from us, and we shot six dozen arrows each in the course of the afternoon, with an interval at three o’clock for tea and ices under the great cedar. The gold centre counts nine, the red seven, and so on outward to the white, which counts only one. My first arrow went into the grass a good ten yards short, and a gentleman among the spectators laughed aloud, which made me so cross that my next three all struck the red.

The prize, a silver arrow, was won by Miss Alderson of Wexley, who has shot for eight summers and never seems to miss. I was placed eleventh, which Papa declares is a great deal better than he expected, though he would not say how much he had expected.

We drove home by moonlight. My arms ache dreadfully, and I am already counting the days until the next meeting in August.

Ever your loving friend,

Louisa

(a) How far away from the archers did the targets stand? (b) What was the prize at the meeting? (c) Why did the writer become cross?