3i8 The Real Charlotte. 



" Arrah, fifty pounds ! God help ye ! " exclaimed Dinny 

 Lydon with superior scorn. "No, but a hundhred an' 

 eighty was what he put down on the table to Lambert for 

 it, and it's Uttle but he had to give the two hundhred 

 itself." 



Mrs. Lydon looked up from the hearth where she was 

 squatted, fanning the fire with her red petticoat to heat 

 another iron for her husband. " Sure I know Dinny's safe 

 tellin' it to a lady," she said, rolling her dissolute cunning 

 eye from her husband to Miss Mullen ; " but ye'll not 

 spake of it asthore. Jmimy had some dhrink taken when 

 he shown Dinny the docket, because Lambert said he 

 wouldn't give the farm so chape to e'er a one but Jimmy, 

 an' indeed Jimmy'd break every bone in our body if he got 

 the wind of a word that 'twas through us the neighbours 

 had it to say he had that much money with him. Jimmy's 

 very close in himself that way." 



Charlotte laughed good-humouredly. "Oh, there's no 

 fear of me, Mrs. Lydon. It's no affair of mine either way," 

 she said reassuringly. " Here, hurry with me jacket, 

 Dinny ; I'll be glad enough to have it on me going home." 



CHAPTER XLII. 



Sir Benjamin Dysart's funeral was an event of the past. 

 It was a full three weeks since the family vault in Lismoyle 

 Churchyard had closed its door upon that ornament of county 

 society; Lady Dysart's friends were beginning to recover from 

 the strain of writing letters of condolence to her on her 

 bereavement, and Christopher, after sacrificing to his de- 

 parted parent's memory a week of perfect sailing weather, had 

 had his boat painted, and had relapsed into his normal habit 

 of spending as much of his time as was convenient on the 

 lake. 



There was still the mingled collapse and stir in the air 

 that comes between the end of an old regime and the be- 

 ginning of a new. Christopher had resigned his appoint- 

 ment at Copenhagen, feeling that his life would, for the 

 future, be vaguely filled with new duties and occupations, 

 but he had not yet discovered anything very novel to do be- 



