TJie Real Charlotte. 305 



behind the tree? Oh, I declare, it's only one of those 

 everlasting old statues, and look at a lot more of them ! 1 

 wonder if it was that they hadn't room enough for them 

 up in the house that they put them out here in the 

 woods? " 



They had come to an enclosed green space in the wood, 

 a daisy-starred oval of grass, holding the sprmg sunshine in 

 serene remoteness from all the outer world of terraces and 

 gardens, and made mysterious and poetical as a vale in Ida 

 by the strange pale presences that peopled every nook of an 

 ivy-grown crag at its further side. A clear pool reflected 

 them, but wavenngly, because of the ripples caused by a 

 light drip from the overhanging rock ; the trees towered on 

 the encircling high ground and made a wall of silence round 

 the intenser silences of the statues as they leaned and 

 postured in a trance of suspended activity ; the only sound 

 was the monotone of the falling water, dropping with a 

 cloistered gravity in the melodious hollow of the cave. 



" I'm not going to walk another foot," said Francie, 

 sitting down on the grass by the water's edge \ " here, give 

 me the oranges, Roddy, no one'll catch us eating them here, 

 and we can peg the skins at that old thing with its clothes 

 dropping off and the harp in its hand." 



It was thus that Mrs. Lambert described an Apollo with 

 a lyre who was regarding them from the opposite rock with 

 classic preoccupation. Lambert lighted a cigar, and leaning 

 back on his elbow in the grass, watched Francie's progress 

 through her inelegant meal with the pride of the provider. 

 He looked at her half wonderingly, she was so lovely in his 

 eyes, and she was so incredibly his own ; he felt a sudden 

 insanity of tenderness for her that made his heart throb and 

 his cheek redden, and would have ennobled him to the 

 pitch of dying for her on the spot, had such an extrava- 

 gance been demanded of him. He longed to put his 

 arms round her, and tell her how dear, how adorable, how 

 entirely delightful she was, but he knew that she would 

 probably only laugh at him in that maddening way of hers, 

 or at all events, make him feel that she was far less 

 interested in the declaration than he was. He gave a quick 

 sigh, and stretching out his hand laid it on her shoulder as 

 if to assure himself of his ownership of her. 



u 



