The Real Charlotte. 2f 



vaccination and teething-rash and the sins of the nursery- 

 maids are visited upon the company generally. 



" Ah, she's a poor peenie- weenie thing 1 " said Mrs. Baker, 

 who was usually the mouthpiece of Lismoyle opinion, " and 

 it's no wonder that Lambert's for ever flourishing about the 

 country in his dog-trap, and she never seeing a sight of him 

 from morning till night. I'd like to see Mr. Baker getting 

 up on a horse and galloping around the roads after bank 

 hours, instead of coming in for his cup of tea with me and 

 the girls I " 



Altogether the feeling was that Mrs. Lambert was a 

 failure, and in spite of her undoubted amiability, and the 

 creditable fact that Mr. Lambert was the second husband 

 that the eight thousand pounds ground out by her late 

 father's mills had procured for her, her spouse was regarded 

 with a certain regretful pity as the victim of circumstance. 



In spite of his claims upon the sympathy of Lismoyle, 

 Mr. Lambert looked remarkably well able to compete with 

 his lot in life, as he sat smoking his pipe in his dinner cos- 

 tume of carpet slippers and oldest shooting coat^ a couple of 

 evenings after Francie's arrival. As a rule the Lamberts 

 preferred to sit in their dining-room. The hard magni- 

 ficence of the blue rep chairs in the drawing-room appealed 

 to them from different points of view ; Mrs. Lambert hold- 

 ing that they were too good to be used except by " com- 

 pany," while Mr. Lambert truly felt that no one who was 

 not debarred by politeness from the power of complaint 

 would voluntarily sit upon them. An unshaded lamp was 

 on the table, its ugly glare conflicting with the soft remnants 

 of June twilight that stole in between the half drawn cur- 

 tains ; a tumbler of whisky and water stood on the corner 

 of the table beside the comfortable leather-covered arm- 

 chair in which the master of the house was reading his 

 paper, while opposite to him, in a basket chair, his wife was 

 conscientiously doing her fancy work. She was a short 

 woman with confused brown eyes and distressingly sloping 

 shoulders ; a woman of the turkey hen type, dejected and 

 timorous in voice, and an habitual wearer of porous plasters. 

 Her toilet for the evening consisted in replacing by a white 

 cashmere shawl the red knitted one which she habitually 

 wore, and a languid untidiness in the pale brown hair that 



