The Real Charlotte. 235 



afternoon, and surmounted the hill near its gate, the magic 

 that she herself had newly learned about was working its 

 will with him. 



The corn that had stood high between him and Francie 

 that day when he had ridden back to look after her, was 

 bound in sheaves on the yellow upland, and the foolish 

 omen set his pulses going. If she were now passing along 

 that other road there would be nothing between him and 

 her. He had got past the stage of reason, even his power 

 of mocking at himself was dead, or perhaps it was that there 

 seemed no longer anything that could be mocked at. In 

 spite of his knowledge of the world the position had an 

 aspect that was so serious and beautiful as to overpower the 

 others, and to become one of the mysteries of life into 

 which he had thought himself too cheap and shallow to 

 enter. A few weeks ago a visit to Tally Ho would have 

 been a penance and a weariness of the flesh, a thing to be 

 groaned over with Pamela, and endured only for the sake 

 of collecting some new pearl of rhetoric from Miss Mullen. 

 Now each thought of it brought again the enervating thrill, 

 the almost sickening feeling of subdued excitement and ex- 

 pectation. 



It was the Lismoyle market-day, and Christopher made 

 his way slowly along the street, squeezing between carts 

 and barrels, separating groups locked together in the 

 extremity of bargaining, and doing what in him lay to avoid 

 running over the old women, who, blinded by their over- 

 hanging hoods and deaf by nature, paraded the centre of 

 the thoroughfare with a fine obliviousness of dog-carts and 

 their drivers. Most of the better class of shops had their 

 shutters up in recognition of the fact that Mrs. Lambert, a 

 customer whom neither co-operative stores or eighteen- 

 penny teas had been able to turn from her allegiance, had 

 this morning passed their doors for the last time, in slow, 

 incongruous pomp, her silver-mounted coffin commanding 

 all eyes as the glass-sided hearse moved along with its 

 quivering bunches of black plumes. The funeral was still 

 a succulent topic in the gabble of the market ; Christopher 

 heard here and there such snatches of it as : 



" Rest her sowl, the crayture ! 'Tis she was the good 

 wife and more than all, she was the beautiful housekeeper ! '■ 



