The Real Charlotte. 199 



with her. I'd have just said to her, * Out of my house you 

 march, if you don't go to your church ! ' I think that would 

 have composed her rehgious scruples." 



" Oh ! but, Charlotte," pleaded the turkey-hen, '' I couldn't 

 part with her ; she knows just what gentlemen like, and Ro- 

 derick's so particular about savouries When I told him 

 about her, he said he wouldn't care if she was a Mormon 

 and had a dozen husbands, so long as she made good 

 soup." 



Charlotte laughed out loud. Mr. Lambert's turn of 

 humour had a robustness about it that always roused a 

 sympathetic chord in her. 



" Well, that's a man all over ! His stomach before any- 

 one else's soul !" 



^ Oh, Charlotte, you shouldn't say such things ! Indeed, 

 Roderick will often take only the one cut of meat at his 

 dinner these times, and if it isn't to his likmg he'll take 

 nothing ; he's a great epicure, I don't know what's over 

 him those last few weeks," continued Mrs. Lambert gloomily. 

 " unless it's the hot weather, and all the exercise he's taking, 

 that's making him cross " 



'' Well, from all I've ever seen of men," said Charlotte, 

 with a laugh, "the hotter they get the better pleased they 

 are. Take my word for it, there's no time a man's so proud 

 of himself as when he's ' larding the lean earth ' ! " 



Mrs. Lambert looked bewildered; but was too much 

 affaired with her own thoughts to ask for an explanation of 

 what seemed to her a strange term in cookery. 



" Did he know Francie Fitzpatrick much in Dublin ? ' she 

 said after a pause, in which she had given a saucerful of 

 cream and sopped cake to her dog. 



Charlotte looked at her hostess suddenly and searchingly 

 as she stooped with difficulty to take up the saucer. 



" He's known her since she was a child," she replied, and 

 waited for further developments. 



" I thought it must be that way," said Mrs. Lambert with 

 a dissatisfied sound in her voice ; " they're so very familiar- 

 like talking to each other." 



Charlotte's heart paused for an instant in its strong, 

 regular course. Was it possible, she thought, that wisdom 

 was being perfected in the mouth of Lucy Lambert ? 



