282 The Real Charlotte. 



that met and followed their progress. It satisfied his 

 highest ambition that the girl of his choice should be thus 

 openly admired by men whom, year after year, he had 

 looked up at with envious respect as they stood in the bow- 

 window of Kildare Street Club, with figures that time was 

 slowly shaping to its circular form, on the principle of 

 correspondence with environment. He was a man who 

 had always valued his possessions according to other 

 people's estimation of them, and this afternoon Francie 

 gained a new distinction in his eyes. 



Abstract admiration, however, was one thing, but the 

 very concrete attentions of Mr. Thomas Whitty were quite 

 another affair. Before they had been a quarter of an hour 

 on the pier, Francie was hailed by her Christian name, and 

 this friend of her youth, looking more unmistakably than 

 ever a solicitor's clerk, joined them, flushed with the effort 

 of overtaking them, and evidently determined not to leave 

 them again. 



" I spotted you by your hair, Francie," Mr. Whitty was 

 pleased to observe, after the first greetings ; " you must have 

 been getting a new dye for it ; I could see it a mile 

 off!" 



** Oh, yes," responded Francie, " I tried a new bottle the 

 other day, the same you use for your moustache, y'know ! 

 I thought I'd like people to be able to see it without a 

 spy-glass." 



As Mr. Whitty's moustache was represented by three 

 sickly hairs and a pimple, the sarcasm was sufificiently biting 

 to yield Lambert a short-lived gratification. 



" Mr. Lambert dyes his black," continued Francie, with- 

 out a change of countenance. She had the Irish love of a 

 scrimmage in her, and she thought it would be great fun to 

 make Mr. Lambert cross. 



"D'ye find the colour comes off ?" murmured Tommy 

 Whitty, eager for revenge, but too much afraid of Lambert 

 to speak out loud. 



Even Francie, though she favoured the repartee with a 

 giggle, was glad that Lambert had not heard. 



" D'ye find you want your ears boxed ? " she returned in 

 the same tone of voice; "I won't walk with you if you 

 don't behave." Inwardly, however, she decided that 



