276 TJie Real Charlotte. 



Finding this argument not easy to answer, Mr. Fitzpatrick 

 said nothing, and his wife, too much interested to hnger 

 over side issues, continued, 



" The girls say they heard him asking her to drive to the 

 Dargle with him to-morrow, and he's brought a grand box 

 of sweets for the children as a Christmas box, and six lovely 

 pair of gloves for Francie ! 'Pon me word, I call her a very 

 lucky girl ! " 



" Well, if I was a woman it isn't that fellow I'd fancy," 

 said Mr. Fitzpatrick, unexpectedly changing his ground, 

 " but as, thank God, I'm not, it's no affair of mine." Hav- 

 ing delivered himself of this sentiment, Mr. Fitzpatrick went 

 downstairs. The smell of hot cakes rose deliciously upon 

 the air, and, as his niece emerged from the kitchen with a 

 plateful of them in her hand, and called to him to hurry 

 before they got cold, he thought to himself that Lambert 

 would have the best of the bargain if he married her. 



Francie found the evening surprisingly pleasant. She 

 was, as she had always been, entirely at her ease with Mr. 

 Lambert, and did not endure, on his account, any vicarious 

 suffering because the table-cloth was far from clean, and the 

 fact that Bridget put on the coal with her fingers wa*t 

 recorded on the edges of the plates. If he chose to come 

 and eat hot cakes in the bosom of the Fitzpatrick family 

 instead of dining at his hotel, he was just as well able to do 

 without a butter-knife as she was, and, at all events, he need 

 not have stayed unless he liked, she thought, with a little 

 flash of amusement and pride that her power over him, at 

 least, was not lost. There had been times during the last 

 month or two when she had believed that he, like everyone 

 else, had forgotten her, and it was agreeable to find that she 

 had been mistaken. 



The next day proved to be one of the softest and sunniest 

 of the winter, and, as they flew along the wet road towards 

 the Dargle, on the smartest of the Bray outside cars, a great 

 revival took place in Francie's spirits. They left their car 

 at the gate of the glen to which the Dargle river has given 

 its name, and strolled together along the private road that 

 runs from end to end of it. A few holiday-makers had 

 been tempted down from Dublin by the fine day, but there 

 was nothing that even suggested the noisy pleasure parties 



