268 The Real Charlotte. 



basin from a paper bag with quick, trembling fingers ; her 

 breath came pantingly, and the letter that she had hidden 

 inside the front of her dress crackled with the angry rise and 

 fall of her breast. That he should advise her to go and 

 make friends with Charlotte, and tell her she had made a 

 mistake in refusing Mr. Dysart, and never say a word about 

 all that she had said to him in her letter — ! 



"Francie's got a letter from her sweetheart !" said Mabel, 

 skipping round the kitchen, and singing the words in a 

 kind of chant. " Ask her for the lovely crest for your 

 album, Bobby ! " 



Evidently the ubiquitous Mabel had studied the contents 

 of the letter-box. 



"Ah, it's well to be her," said Bridget, joining in the 

 conversation with her accustomed ease ; " it's long before 

 my fella would write me a letter ! " 



"And it's little you want letters from him/* remarked 

 Bobby, in his slow, hideous, Dublin brogue, " when you're 

 out in the lane talking to another fella every night." 



" Ye lie ! " said Bridget, with a flattered giggle, while 

 Bobby ran up the kitchen stairs after Francie, and took ad- 

 vantage of her having the teapot in one hand and the milk- 

 jug in the other to thrust his treacly fingers into her pocket 

 in search of the letter. 



" Ah, have done ! " said Francie angrily ; " look, your 

 after making me spill the milk ! " 



But Bobby who had been joined by Mabel, continued his 

 persecutions, till his cousin, freeing herself of her burdens, 

 turned upon him and boxed his ears with a vigour that sent 

 him howling upstairs to complain to his mother. 



After this incident, Francie's life at Albatross Villa went 

 on, as it seemed to her, in a squalid monotony of hopeless- 

 ness. The days became darker and colder, and the food 

 and firing more perceptibly insufficient, and strong tea a 

 more prominent feature of each meal, and even Aunt Tish 

 lifted her head from the round of unending, dingy cares, 

 and saw some change in Francie. She said to Uncle 

 Robert, with an excusable thought of Francie's ungrudging 

 help in the household, and her contribution to it of five 

 shillings a week, that it would be a pity if the sea air didn't 

 suit the girl ; and Uncle Robert, arranging a greasy satin tie 



