196 The Real Charlotte. 



*' Very likely/' said Mr. Lambert, yawning and relapsing 

 into silence. 



** Well, Roddy," resumed Charlotte more amicably, " I 

 didn't walk all the way here to discuss the fashions with 

 you. Have y'any more news from the seat of war ? " 



" No j confound her, she won't stir, and I don't see what's 

 going to make her unless I evict her." 



" Why don't ye writ her for the money ? " said Charlotte, 

 the spirit of her attorney grandfather gleaming in her eyes ; 

 ^'that'd frighten her!" 



^* I don't want to do that if I can help it. I spoke to her 

 about the lodge that Lady Dysart said she could have, and 

 the old devil was fit to be tied ; but we might get her to it 

 before we've done with her." 



'* If it was me I'd writ her now," repeated Charlotte 

 venomously ; " you'll find you'll have to come to it in the 

 end." 



*' It's a sin to see that lovely pasture going to waste," 

 said Lambert, leaning back and puffing at his pipe. " Peter 

 Joyce hasn't six head of cattle on it this minute." 



'' If you and I had it, Roddy," said Charlotte, eyeing him 

 with a curious, guarded tenderness, "it wouldn't be that 

 way." 



Some vibration of the strong, incongruous tremor that 

 passed through her as she spoke, reached Lambert's in- 

 dolent perception and startled it. It reminded him of the 

 nebulous understanding that taking her money seemed to 

 have involved him in ; he believed he knew why she had 

 given it to him, and though he knew also that he held his 

 advantage upon precarious terms, even his coarse-fibred 

 nature found something repellent in the thought of having 

 to diplomatise with such affections as Charlotte's. 



*' I was up at Murphy's yesterday," he said, as if his train 

 of ideas had not been interrupted. " He has a grand filly 

 there that I'd buy to-morrow if I had the money, or any 

 place to put her. There's a pot of money in her." 



" Well, if you'll get me Gurthnamuckla," said Charlotte 

 with a laugh, in which nervousness was strangely apparent, 

 ''you may buy up every young horse in the country and 

 stable them in the parlour, so long as you'll leave the attics 

 for me and the cats." 



