304 The Real Charlotte. 



splendours of the terraces down to the simplicities of a path 

 leading into a grove of trees. 



The path wound temptingly on into the wood, with prim- 

 roses and celandine growing cool and fresh in the young 

 grass on either side of it ; the shady greenness was like the 

 music of stringed instruments after the brazen heroics of a 

 military band. They loitered along, and Francie slipped 

 her hand into Lambert's arm, feeling, unconsciously, a little 

 more in sympathy with him, and more at ease with life. 

 She had never pretended either to him or to herself that she 

 was in love with him ; her engagement had been the inevit- 

 able result of poverty, and aimlessness, and bitterness of 

 soul, but her instinctive leniency towards any man who liked 

 her, joined with her old friendliness for Mr. Lambert, made 

 it as easy a way out of her difficulties as any she could have 

 chosen. There was something flattering in the knowledge 

 of hei power over a man whom she had been accustomed 

 to look up to, and something, too, that appealed incessantly 

 to her good nature ; besides which there is to nearly every 

 human being some comfort in being the first object of 

 another creature's life. She was almost fond of him as she 

 walked beside him, glad to rest her weight on his arm, and 

 to feel how big and reliable he was. There was nothing in 

 the least romantic about having married him, but it was 

 eminently creditable. Her friends in the north side of 

 Dublin had been immensely impressed by it, and she knew 

 enough of Lismoyle society to be aware that there also she 

 would be regarded with gratifying envy. She quite looked 

 forward to meeting Hawkins again, that she might treat him 

 with the cool and assured patronage proper to the heights 

 of her new position ; he had himself seared the wound that 

 he had given her, and now she felt that she was thankful to 

 him. 



" Hang this path ! it has as many turns as a corkscrew," 

 remarked Mr. Lambert, bending his head to avoid a down- 

 stretched branch of hawthorn, covered with baby leaves and 

 giant thorns. " I thought we'd have come to a seat long 

 before this ; if it was Stephen's Green there'd have been 

 twenty by this time." 



" There would, and twenty old men sitting on each of 

 them ! " retorted Francie. '^ Mercy ! who's that hiding 



