The Real Charlotte, 49 



the trees of the Lisraoyle highroad, and in spite of the 

 injuries which the pommels of the saddle were inflicting 

 upon her, and the growing stiffness of all her muscles, she 

 held gallantly on at a sharp trot, till her hair-pins and her 

 hat were loosed from their foundations, and her green habit 

 rose in ungainly folds. They were nearing Rosemount 

 when they heard wheels behind them. Lambert took the 

 left side of the road, and the black mare followed his 

 example with such suddenness, that Francie, when she had 

 recovered her equilibrium, could only be thankful that 

 nothing more than her hat had come off. With the first in- 

 stinct of woman she snatched at the coils of hair that fell 

 down her back and hung enragingly over her eyes, and tried 

 to wind them on to her head again. She became horribly 

 aware that a waggonette with several people in it had pulled 

 up beside her, and, finally, that a young man with a clean- 

 shaved face and an eyeglass was handing her her hat and 

 taking off his own. 



Holding in her teeth the few hair-pins that she had been 

 able to save from the wreck, she stammered a gratitude 

 that she was far from feeling ; and when she heard Lambert 

 say, " Oh, thank you, Dysart, you just saved me getting off," 

 she felt that her discomfiture was complete. 



CHAPTER Vin. 



Christopher Dysart was a person about whom Lismoyle 

 and its neighbourhood had not been able to come to a satis- 

 factory conclusion, unless, indeed, that conclusion can be 

 called satisfactory which admitted him to be a disappoint- 

 ment. From the time that, as a shy, plain little boy he 

 first went to school, and, after the habit of boys, ceased to 

 exist except in theory and holidays, a steady undercurrent 

 of interest had always set about him. His mother was so 

 charming, and his father so delicate, and he himself so con- 

 veniently contemporary with so many daughters, that 

 although the occasional glimpses vouchsafed of him during 

 his Winchester and Oxford career were as discouraging as 

 they were brief, it was confidently expected that he would 

 emerge from his boyish shyness when he came to take his 



D 



