46 The Real Charlotte. 



engaged in a baking game of tennis in the square outside 

 her uncle's house. She felt very sorry for Aunt Tish when 

 she thought of that hungry gang of sons and daughters and 

 of the evil days that had come upon the excellent and re- 

 spectable Uncle Robert, and the still more evil days thai 

 would come in another fortnight or so, when the whole 

 bursting party had squeezed themselves into a little house 

 at Bray, there to exist for an indefinite period on Irish stew, 

 strong tea, and a diminished income. There was a kind of 

 understanding that when they were " settled " she was to go 

 back to them, and blend once more her five and twenty 

 pounds a year with the Fitzpatrick funds ; but this afternoon, 

 with the rich summer stillness and the blaze of buttercups 

 all about her, and the unfamiliar feeling of the mare's rest- 

 less shoulder under her knee, she was exceedingly glad that 

 the settling process would take some months at least. She 

 was not given to introspection, and could not have said any- 

 thing in the least interesting about her mental or moral 

 atmosphere ; she was too uneducated and too practical for 

 any self-communings of this kind ; but she was quite certain 

 of two things, that in spite of her affection for the Fitz- 

 patricks she was very glad she was not going to spend the 

 summer in Dublin or Bray, and also, that in spite of certain 

 bewildering aspects of her cousin Charlotte, she was begin- 

 ning to have what she defined to herself as " a high old 

 time." 



It was somewhere about this period in her meditations 

 that she became aware of a slight swishing and puffing 

 sound from the direction of the lake, and a steam-launch 

 came swiftly along close under the shore. She was a smart- 

 looking boat, spick and span as white paint and a white 

 funnel with a brass band could make her, and in her were 

 seated two men ; one, radiant in a red and white blazer, was 

 steering, while the other, in clothes to which even distance 

 failed to lend enchantment, was menially engaged in break- 

 ing coals with a hammer. The boughs of the trees inter- 

 vened exasperatingly between Francie and this glittering 

 vision, and the resolve to see it fully lent her the power to 

 drag the black mare from her repast, and urge her forward 

 to an opening where she could see and be seen, two equally 

 important objects. 



