6 The Real Charlotte, 



*' Francie'd be killed if mamma thought she was playing with 

 Tommy Whitty ! " 



They were nearing the Fitzpatrick mansion by this time, 

 and Lambert stood still at the foot of the steps and looked 

 down at the small group of petitioners with indulgent self- 

 satisfaction. 



'' Well, Francie, what'll you do for me if I don't tell ? " 



Francie walked stiffly up the steps. 



"I don't know." Then with a defiance that she was far 

 from feeling, " You may tell her if you like ! " 



Lambert laughed easily as he followed her up the steps. 



"You're very angry with me now, aren't you? Well, never 

 mind, we'll be friends, and I won't tell on you this time." 



CHAPTER IL 



The east wind was crying round a small house in the out- 

 skirts of an Irish country town. At nightfall it had stolen 

 across the grey expanse of Lough Moyle, and given its first 

 shudder among the hollies and laurestinas that hid the 

 lower windows of Tally Ho Lodge from the too curious 

 passer-by, and at about two o'clock of the November night 

 it was howling so inconsolably in the great tunnel of the 

 kitchen chimney, that Norry the Boat, sitting on a heap or 

 turf by the kitchen fire, drew her shawl closer about her 

 shoulders, and thought gruesomely of the Banshee. 



The long trails of the monthly roses tapped and scratched 

 against the window panes, so loudly sometimes that two 

 cats, dozing on the rusty slab of a disused hothearth, opened 

 their eyes and stared, with the expressionless yet wholly 

 alert scrutiny of their race. The objects in the kitchen were 

 scarcely more than visible in the dirty light of a hanging 

 lamp, and the smell of paraffin filled the air. High presses 

 and a dresser lined the walls, and on the top of the dresser, 

 close under the blackened ceiling, it was just possible to 

 make out the ghostly sleeping form of a cockatoo. A door 

 at the end of the kitchen opened into a scullery of the usual 

 prosaic, not to say odorous kind, which was now a cavern 

 of darkness, traversed by twin green stars that moved to and 

 fro as the lights move on a river at night, and looked like 



