326 The Real Charlotte, 



The owner of the voice advanced into the room, and saw, 

 as anyone must have seen, the flushed faces of its two 

 occupants, and felt that nameless quality in the air that tells 

 of interruption. 



" I took the liberty of announcing myself," she said, with 

 her most affable smile; ''I knew you were at home, as I 

 saw Mr. Hawkins' trap at the door, and I just walked 

 in." 



As she shook hands and sat down she expanded easily 

 into a facetious description of the difficulties of getting her 

 old horse along the road from Gurthnamuckla, and by the 

 time she had finished her story Hawkins' complexion had 

 regained its ordinary tone, and Francie had resumed the air 

 of elegant nonchalance appropriate to the importance of the 

 married state. Nothing, in fact, could have been more 

 admirable than Miss Mullen's manner. She praised Francie's 

 new chair covers and Indian tea ; she complimented Mr. 

 Hawkins on his new pony ; even going so far as to reproach 

 him for not having been out to Gurthnamuckla to see her, 

 till Francie felt some pricks of conscience about the sceptical 

 way that she and Lambert had laughed together over 

 Charlotte's amiability when she paid her first visit to them. 

 She found inexpressible ease in the presence of a third 

 person as capable as Charlotte of carrying on a conversation 

 with the smallest possible assistance ; sheltered by it she 

 slowly recovered from her mental overthrow, and, furious as 

 she was with Hawkins for his part in it, she was beginning 

 to be able to patronise him again by the time that he got 

 up to go away. 



" Well, Francie, my dear child," began Charlotte, as soon 

 as the door had closed behind him, "I've scarcely had a 

 word with you since you came home. You had such a 

 reception the last day I was here that I had to content 

 myself with talking to Mrs. Beattie, and hearing all about 

 the price of underclothes. Indeed I had a good mind to 

 tell her that only for your magnanimity she wouldn't be 

 having so much to say about Carrie's trousseau ! " 



"Indeed she was welcome to him !" said Francie, putting 

 her chin in the air, " that Httle wretch, indeed ! " 



It was one of the moments when she touched the extreme 

 of satisfaction in being married, and in order to cover, for 



