26 The Real Charlotte, 



*• Did you come down from Dublin to-day, Roddy ? '* 

 said Charlotte. 



** Yes, I did," answered Mr. Lambert, turning his horse 

 as he spoke j " I had business that took me up to town 

 yesterday, so it just happened that I hit off Francie. Well, 

 good evening. I expect Lucy will be calling round to see 

 you to-morrow or next day." 



He walked his horse down the drive, and as he passed 

 Francie returning with her hat he leaned over the wheel 

 and said something to her that made her shake her head 

 and laugh. Miss Charlotte was too far off to hear what it 

 was. 



CHAPTER V. 



It was generally felt in Lismoyle that Mr. Roderick Lam- 

 bert held an unassailable position in society. The Dysart 

 agency had always been considered to confer brevet rank as 

 a country gentleman upon its owner, apart even from the 

 intimacy with the Dysarts which it implied; and as, in 

 addition to these advantages, Mr. Lambert possessed good 

 looks, a wife with money, and a new house at least a mile 

 from the town, built under his own directions and at his 

 employer's expense, Lismoyle placed him unhesitatingly at 

 the head of its visiting list. Of course his wife was placed 

 there too, but somehow or other Mrs. Lambert was a person 

 of far less consequence than her husband. She had had 

 the money certainly, but that quality was a good deal over- 

 looked by the Lismoyle people in their admiration for the 

 manner in which her husband spent it. It was natural that 

 they should respect the captor rather than the captive, and, 

 in any case, Mr. Roderick Lambert's horses and traps were 

 more impressive facts than the Maltese terrier and the shelf 

 of patent medicines that were Mrs. Lambert's only ex- 

 travagances. 



Possibly, also, the fact that she had no children placed 

 her at a disadvantage with the matrons of Lismoyle, all of 

 whom could have spoken fearlessly with their enemies 

 in the gate; it deprived conversation with her of the 

 antiphonal quality, when mother answers unto mother of 



