138 The Real Charlotte. 



It was consolatory that Miss Hope-Drummond had elected 

 to have her tea conveyed to her in the hammock ; it was 

 too much trouble to get out of it, she called, in her shrill, 

 languid voice, and no one had argued the matter with her. 

 Lady Dysart, who had occupied herself during the afternoon 

 in visiting the garden-beds and giving a species of clinical 

 lecture on each to the wholly unimpressed gardener, had 

 subsided into a chair beside Francie, and began to discuss 

 with her the evangelical preachers of Dublin, a mark of con- 

 fidence and esteem which Pamela noticed with astonish- 

 ment. Francie had got to her second cup of tea, and had 

 evinced an edifying familiarity with Lady Dysart's most 

 chosen divines, when the dogs, who had been seated 

 opposite Pamela, following with lambent eyes the passage 

 of each morsel to her lips, rushed from the verandah, and 

 charged with furious barkings across the garden and down 

 the lawn towards two figures, whom in their hearts they 

 knew to be the sons of the house, but whom, for histrionic 

 purposes, they affected to regard as dangerous strangers. 



Miss Hope-Drummond sat up in her hammock and 

 pinned her hat on straight. 



" Mr. Dysart," she called, as Christopher and Garry 

 neared her chestnut tree, " you've just come in time to get 

 me another cup of tea." 



Christopher dived under the chestnut branches, and 

 presently, with what Miss Hope-Drummond felt to be un- 

 exampled stupidity, returned with it, but without his own. 

 He had even the gaucherie to commend her choice of the 

 hammock, and having done so, to turn and walk back to 

 the verandah, and Miss Hope-Drummond asked herself for 

 the hundredth time how the Castlemores could have put up 

 with him. 



" I met the soldiers out on the lake to-day," Christopher 

 remarked as he sat down ; *' I told them to come and dine 

 to-morrow." He looked at Pamela with an eye that chal- 

 lenged her gratitude, but before she could reply, Garry in- 

 terposed in tones muffled by cake. 



*' He did, the beast ; and he might have remembered it 

 was my birthday, and the charades and everything." 



" Oh, Garry, 7nust we have charades ? " said Pamela la- 

 mentably. 



