2/0 The Real Charlotte. 



vanity that was tempered by uncertainty and not unmingled 

 with awe ; but she knew him just well enough, and had 

 just enough perception to respect him. Fanny Hemphill 

 and Delia Whitty would have regarded him with a terror 

 that would have kept them dumb m his presence, but for 

 which they would have compensated themselves at other 

 times by explosive gigglings at his lack of all that they 

 admired most in young men. Some errant streak of finer 

 sense made her feel his difference from the men she knew, 

 without wanting to laugh at it ; as has already been said, she 

 respected him, an emotion not hitherto awakened by a varied 

 experience of *' gentlemen friends." 



There were times when the domestic affairs of Albatross 

 Villa touched their highest possibility of discomfort, when 

 Bridget had gone to the christening of a friend's child at 

 Enniskerry, and returned next day only partially recovered 

 from the potations that had celebrated the event ; or when 

 Dottie, unfailing purveyor of diseases to the family, had im- 

 ported German measles from her school. At these times 

 Francie, as she made fires, or beds, or hot drinks, would 

 think of Bruff and its servants with a regret that was none 

 the less burning for its ignobleness. Several times when she 

 lay awake at night, staring at the blank of her own future, 

 while the stabs of misery were sharp and unescapable, she 

 had thought that she would write to Christopher, and tell 

 him what had happened, and where she was. In those 

 hours when nothing is impossible and nothing is unnatural, 

 his face and his words, when she saw him last, took on their 

 fullest meaning, and she felt as if she had only to put her 

 hand out to open that which she had closed. The diplo- 

 matic letter, about nothing in particular, that should make 

 Christopher understand that she would like to see him again, 

 was often half composed, had indeed often lulled her sore 

 heart and hot eyes to sleep with visions of the divers luxuries 

 and glories that this single stepping-stone should lead to. 

 But in the morning, when the children had gone to school, 

 and she had come in from marketing, it was not such an 

 easy thing to sit down and write a letter about nothing in 

 particular to Mr. Dysart. Her defeat at the hands of 

 Hawkins had taken away her belief in herself. She could 

 not even hint to Christopher the true version of her fight 



