272 The Real Charlotte. 



not been out of the house for two days. Christmas morn- 

 ing was signalised by the heaviest downpour of the week. 

 It was hopeless to think of going to church, least of all for 

 a person whose most presentable boots were relics of the 

 past summer, and bore the cuts of lake rocks on their dulled 

 patent leather. The post came late, after its wont, but it 

 did not bring the letter that Francie had not been able to 

 help expecting. There had been a few Christmas cards, 

 and one letter which did indeed bear the Lismoyle post- 

 mark, but was only a bill from the Misses Greely, forwarded 

 by Charlotte, for the hat that she had bought to replace the 

 one that was lost on the day of the capsize of the Daphne. 



The Christmas mid-day feast of tough roast-beef and 

 pallid plum-pudding was eaten, and then, unexpectedly, the 

 day brightened, a thin sunlight began to fall on the wet 

 roads and the dirty, tossing sea, and Francie and her 

 younger cousins went forth to take the air on the Esplanade. 

 They were the only human beings upon it when they first 

 got there ; in any other weather Francie might have ex- 

 pected to meet a friend or two from Dubhn there, as had 

 occurred on previous Sundays, when the still enamoured 

 Tommy Whitty had ridden down on his bicycle, or Fanny 

 Hemphill and her two medical student brothers had asked 

 her to join them in a walk round Bray Head. The society 

 of the Hemphills and Mr. Whitty had lost, for her, much of 

 its pristine charm, but it was better than nothing at all ; in 

 fact, those who saw the glances that Miss Fitzpatrick, from 

 mere force of habit, levelled at Mr. Whitty, or were wit- 

 nesses of a pebble-throwing encounter with the Messrs. 

 Hemphill, would not have guessed that she desired any- 

 thing better than these amusements. 



" Such a Christmas Day ! " she thought to herself, 

 " without a soul to see or to talk to ! I declare, I think I'll 

 turn nurse in a hospital, the way Susie Brennan did. They 

 say those nurses have grand fun, and 'twould be better than 

 this awful old place anyhow ! " She had walked almost to 

 the squat Martello tower, and while she looked discon- 

 tentedly up at Bray Head, the last ray of sun struck on its 

 dark shoulder as if to challenge her with the magnificence 

 of its outline and the untruthfulness of her indictment. 

 " Oh, you may shine away ! " she exclaimed, turning her 



