3IO The Real Charlotte, 



"and his financier into the bargain ! I declare I don't know 

 what he'd do without me ! " 



The higher and more subtle side of Miss Mullen's nature 

 had exacted of the quivering savage that had been awakened 

 by Lambert's second marriage that the answer to his letter 

 should be of a conventional and non-committing kind ; and 

 so, when her brain was still on fire with hatred and invective, 

 her facile pen glided pleasantly over the paper in stale feli- 

 citations and stereotyped badinage. It is hard to ask pity 

 for Charlotte, whose many evil qualities have without pity 

 been set down, but the seal of ignoble tragedy had been set 

 on her life ; she had not asked for love, but it had come to 

 her J twisted to burlesque by the malign hand of fate. There 

 is pathos as well as humiliation in the thought that such a 

 thing as a soul can be stunted by the trivialities of personal 

 appearance, and it is a fact not beyond the reach of sym- 

 pathy that each time Charlotte stood before her glass her 

 ugliness spoke to her of failure, and goaded her to revenge. 



It was a wet morning, but at half-past eleven o'clock the 

 black horse was put into the phaeton, and Miss Mullen, 

 attired in a shabby mackintosh, set out on her mission to 

 Rosemount. A cold north wind drove the rain in her face 

 as she flogged the old horse along through the shelterless 

 desolation of rock and scrub, and in spite of her mackin- 

 tosh she felt wet and chilled by the time she reached Rose- 

 mount yard. She went into the kitchen by the back door, 

 and delivered her message to Eliza Hackett, whom she 

 found sitting in elegant leisure, retrimming a bonnet that 

 had belonged to the late Mrs. Lambert. 



" And is it the day after to-morrow, Miss, please ? " de- 

 manded Eliza Hackett with cold resignation. 



" It is, me poor woman, it is," replied Charlotte, in the 

 tone of facetious intimacy that she reserved for otlier people's 

 servants. " You'll have to stir your stumps to get the house 

 ready for them." 



'.* The house is cleaned down and ready for them as soon 

 as they like to walk into it," replied Eliza Hackett with 

 dignity, " and if the new lady faults the drawing-room chim- 

 bley for not being swep, the master will know it's not me 

 that's to blame for it, but the sweep that's gone dhrilling 

 with the Mileetia." 



