7^ The Real Charlotte. 



it startled him. It was an unheard-of thing that Charlotte 

 should make such an offer as this. It gave him suddenly a 

 tingling sense of power, and at the same time a strange 

 instinct of disgust and shame. 



" Oh, my dear Charlotte," he began awkwardly, " upon 

 my soul you're a great deal too good. I never thought of 

 such a thing — I — I — " he stammered, wishing he could 

 refuse, but casting about for words in which to accept. 



"Ah, nonsense. Now, Roddy, me dear boy," interrupted 

 Charlotte, regaining her usual manner as she saw his em- 

 barrassment, " say no more about it. We'll consider it a 

 settled thing, and we'll go through the base business details 

 after tea." 



Lambert said to himself that there was really no way out 

 of it. If she was so determined the only thing was to let 

 her do as she liked ; no one could say that the affair was of 

 his seeking. 



" And, you know," continued Charlotte in her most 

 jocular voice, before he could frame a sentence of the right 

 sort, " who knows, if I get the farm, that we mightn't make 

 a joint-stock business out of it, and have young horses there, 

 and all the rest of it ! " 



" You're awfully good, Charlotte," said Lambert, with an 

 emotion in his voice that she did not guess to be purely the 

 result of inward relief and exultation ; " I'm awfully obliged 

 to you — you always were a — a true friend — some day, per- 

 haps, I'll be able to show you what I think about it," he 

 stammered, unable to think of anything else to say, and, 

 lifting his hand from the splash-board, he put it on hers, 

 that lay in her lap with the reins in it, and pressed it for a 

 moment. Into both their minds shot simultaneously the 

 remembrance of a somewhat similar scene, when, long ago, 

 Charlotte had come to the help of her father's pupil, and he 

 had expressed his gratitude in a more ardent manner — a 

 manner that had seemed cheap enough to him at the time, 

 but that had been more costly to Charlotte than any other 

 thing that had ever befallen her. 



" You haven't forgotten old times any more than I have,** 

 he went on, knowing very well that he was taking now much 

 the same simple and tempting method of getting rid of his 

 obligation that he had once found so efficacious, and to a 



