The Real Charlotte. 1 37 



slow pleasure of a perfume makes itself slowly felt. The 

 fact that Pamela had on a grass hat of sunburnt maturity, 

 and a skirt which bore the imprint of dogs' paws was in 

 itself reassuring, and as they went together down a shrubbery 

 walk, and finally settled upon the strawberry beds in the 

 fvide, fragrant kitchen-garden, the first terrors began to 

 subside in Francie's trembling soul, and she found herself 

 breathing more naturally in this strange, rarefied condition 

 of things. Even luncheon was less formidable than she had 

 expected. Christopher was not there, the dreaded Sir 

 Benjamin was not there, and Lady Dysart consulted her 

 about the cutting-out of poor clothes, and accepted with an 

 almost alarming enthusiasm the suggestions that Francie 

 diffidently brought up from the depths of past experience of 

 the Fitzpatrick wardrobe. 



The long, unusual leisure of the afternoon passed by her 

 like a pleasant dream, in which, as she sat in a basket-chair 

 under the verandah outside the drawing-room windows, 

 illustrated papers, American magazines, the snoring lethargy 

 of the dogs, and the warm life and stillness of the air were 

 about equally blended. Miss Hope-Drummond lay aloof 

 in a hammock under a horse-chestnut tree at the end of the 

 flower-garden, working at the strip of Russian embroidery 

 that some day was to languish neglected on the stall of an 

 English bazaar ; Francie had seen her trail forth with her 

 arms full of cushions, and dimly divined that her fellow- 

 guest was hardly tolerating the hours that were to her like 

 fragments collected from all the holidays she had ever 

 known. No wonder, she thought, that Pamela wore a brow 

 of such serenity, when days like this were her ordinary 

 portion. Five o'clock came, and with it, with the majestic 

 punctuality of a heavenly body, came Gorman and the tea 

 equipage, attended by his satellite, William, bearing the tea- 

 table. Francie had never heard the word idyllic, but the 

 feeling that it generally conveys came to her as she lay back 

 in her chair, and saw the roses swaying about the pillars of 

 the verandah, and watched the clots of cream sliding into 

 her cup over the broad hp of the cream jug, and thought 

 how incredibly brilliant the silver was, and that Miss 

 Dysart's hands looked awfully pretty while she was pouring 

 out tea, and weren't a bit spoiled by being rather brown. 



