The Real Charlotte, 23 



glance at the contents of the pigs' trough, went out of the 

 yard by the gate that led to the front of the house. 

 Rhododendrons and laurels made a dark green tunnel about 

 her, and, though it was June, the beech leaves of last 

 November lay rotting on each side of the walk. Opposite 

 the hall door the ground rose in a slight slope, thickly 

 covered with evergreens, and topped by a lime tree, on 

 whose lower limbs a flock of black turkeys had ranged 

 themselves in sepulchral meditation. The house itself was 

 half stifled with ivy, monthly roses, and virginian creeper ; 

 everywhere was the same unkempt profusion of green things, 

 that sucked the sunshine into themselves, and left the air 

 damp and shadowed. Charlotte had the air of thinking 

 very deeply as she walked slowly along with her hands in 

 the pockets of her black alpaca apron. The wrinkles on 

 her forehead almost touched the hair that grew so low down 

 upon it as to seem like a wig that had been pulled too far 

 over the turn of the brow, and she kept chewing at her 

 heavy underlip as was her habit during the processes of un- 

 observed thought. Then she went into the house, and, 

 sitting down at the davenport in the dining-room, got out a 

 sheet of her best notepaper, and wrote a note to Pamela 

 Dysart in her strong, commercially clear hand. 



Afternoon tea had never flourished as an institution at 

 Tally Ho Lodge. Occasionally, and of necessity, a laboured 

 repast had been served at five o'clock by the trembling 

 Louisa; occasions on which the afternoon caller had not 

 only to suffer the spectacle of a household being shaken to 

 its foundations on her behalf, but had subsequently to eat 

 of the untempting fruit of these struggles. On the after- 

 noon, however, of the day following that of the cleansing of 

 the spare room, timely preparations had been made. Half 

 the round table in the centre of the drawing-room had been 

 covered with a cloth, and on it Louisa, in the plenitude of 

 her zeal, had prepared a miniature breakfast ; loaf, butter- 

 cooler, and knives and forks, a truly realistic touch being 

 conferred by two egg-cups standing in the slop-basin. A 

 vase of marigolds and pink sweet-pea stood behind these, a 

 fresh heap of shavings adorned the grate, the piano had been 

 opened and dusted, and a copy of the " Indiana Waltzes '' 

 frisked on the desk in the breeze from the open window 



