The Real Charlotte. 333 



parasol that, moving slowly aloro; above the grey wall, 

 marked Francie's progress along the lane. Charlotte hurried 

 on towards the gate, well satisfied with the result of her con- 

 versation, and she was within some fifty yards of it when a 

 loud and excited shout from Lambert, combined with the 

 thud of galloping hoofs, made her start round. The young 

 horses had been frightened by Lambert's approach, and after 

 one or two circling swoops, had seen the open gate, and, 

 headed by the brown filly, were careering towards it. 



" The gate ! Charlotte ! " roared Lambert, rushing futilely 

 after the horses, " shut the gate ! " 



Charlotte was off in an instant, realising as quickly as 

 Lambert what might happen if Francie were charged in the 

 narrow lane by this living avalanche ; even in the first in- 

 stant of comprehension another idea had presented itself. 

 Should she stumble and so not reach the gate in time ? It 

 was fascinatingly simple, but it was too simple, and it was 

 by no means certain. 



Charlotte ran her hardest, and, at some slight personal 

 risk, succeeded in slamming the gate in the face of the 

 brown filly, as she and her attendant squires dashed up to 

 it. There was a great deal of slipping about and snorting, 

 before the trio recovered themselves, and retired to pass off 

 their discomfiture in a series of dislocating bucks and squeal- 

 ing snaps at each other, and then Charlotte, purple from her 

 exertions, advanced to meet Lambert with the smile of the 

 benefactor broad upon her face. His was blotched white 

 and red with fright and running ; without a breath left to 

 thank her, he took her hand, and wrung it with a more 

 genuine emotion than he had ever before felt for her. 



Francie, meanwhile, strolled slowly up the lane towards 

 the house, with her red parasol on her shoulder and her 

 bunch of cowsUps in her hand. She knew that the visit to 

 the Stone Field was only the preliminary to a crawling in- 

 spection of every cow, sheep, and potato ridge on the farm, 

 and she remembered that she had seen a novel of attractive 

 aspect on the table in the drawing-room. She felt singu- 

 larly uninterested in everything; Gurthnamuckla was nothing 

 but Tally Ho over again on a larger and rather cleaner 

 scale ; the same servants, the same cats, the same cockatoo, 

 the same leathery pastry and tough mutton. Last summer 



