The Real Charlotte, 269 



under his beard at the looking-glass, preparatory to catching 

 the 8.30 train for Dublin, had replied that it wasn't his fault 

 if it didn't, and if she chose to be fool enough to fight with 

 Charlotte Mullen she'd have to put up with it. Uncle 

 Robert was a saturnine little man of small abilities, whose 

 reverses had not improved his temper, and he felt that 

 things were coming to a pretty pass if his wife was going to 

 make him responsible for the sea air, as well as the smoky 

 kitchen chimney, and the scullery sink that Bobby had 

 choked with a dead jelly fish, and everything else. 



The only events that Francie felt to be at all noteworthy 

 were her letters from Mr. Lambert. He was not a briUiant 

 letter writer, having neither originality, nor the gift which is 

 sometimes bestowed on unoriginal people, of conveying 

 news in a simple and satisfying manner ; but his awkward 

 and sterile sentences were as cold waters to the thirsty soul 

 that was always straining back towards its time of abundance. 

 She could scarcely say the word Lismoyle now without a 

 hesitation, it was so shrined in dear and miserable remem- 

 brance, with all the fragrance of the summer embalming it 

 in her mind, that, unselfconscious as she was, the word 

 seemed sometimes too difficult to pronounce. Lambert 

 himself had become a personage of a greater world, and had 

 acquired an importance that he would have resented had he 

 known how wholly impersonal it was. In some ways she did 

 not like him quite as much as in the Dublin days, when he 

 had had the advantage of being the nearest thing to a 

 gentleman that she had met with ; perhaps her glimpses of 

 his home life and the fact of his friendship with Charlotte 

 had been disillusioning, or perhaps the comparison of him 

 with other and newer figures upon her horizon had not 

 been to his advantage ; certainly it was more by virtue of 

 his position in that other world that he was great. 



It was strange that in these comparisons it was to 

 Christopher that she turned for a standard. For her there 

 was no flaw in Hawkins ; her angry heart could name no 

 fault in him except that he had wounded it; but she 

 illogically felt Christopher's superiority without being aware 

 of deficiency in the other. She did not understand 

 Christopher ; she had hardly understood him at that 

 moment to which she now looked back with a gratified 



