The Real Charlotte. 189 



won*t give you,'' said Francie, walking on. "They're to be 

 married before Christmas." The lump rose at last in her 

 throat, and she trod hard on the ground as she walked, in 

 the effort to keep the tears back. 



Charlotte girded her velveteen skirt still higher, and 

 hurried clumsily after the light, graceful figure. 



" Wait, child ! Can't ye wait for me ? Are ye sure it's 

 true?" 



Francie nodded. 



'• The young reprobate ! To be m.aking you so remark- 

 able, and to have the other one up his sleeve all the time ! 

 Didn't I say he had no notion of marrying ye ? " 



Francie made no reply, and Charlotte with some diffi- 

 culty disengaged her hand from her wrappings and patted 

 her on the back. 



"Well, never mind, me child," she said with noisy cheer- 

 fulness ; " you're not trusting to the likes of that fellow ! 

 wait till ye're me Lady Dysart of Bruff, and it's little ye'H 

 think of him then ! " 



They had reached the Tally Ho gate by this time; 

 Francie opened it, and plunged into the pitch-dark tunnel 

 of evergreens without a word. 



CHAPTER XXVH. 



The pre-eminently domestic smell of black currant jam per- 

 vaded Tally Ho next day. The morning had been spent 

 by Charlotte and her retainers in stripping the straggling 

 old bushes of the berries that resembled nothing so much 

 as boot-buttons in size, colour and general consistency ; the 

 preserving pan had been borrowed, according to imme- 

 morial custom, from Miss Egan of the hotel, and at three 

 o'clock of the afternoon the first relay was sluggishly seeth- 

 ing and bubbling on the kitchen fire, and Charlotte, Norry, 

 and Bid Sal were seated at the kitchen table snipping the 

 brown tips of the shining fruit that still awaited its fate. 



It was a bright, steamy day, when the hot sun and the 

 wet earth turned the atmosphere into a Turkish bath, and 

 the cats sat out of doors, but avoided the grass like the 

 plague. Francie had docilely picked currants with the 



