35^ The Real Charlotte. 



" I think that girl will make a very great mistake if she 

 begins a flirtation with Mr. Hawkins again," slie said pre- 

 sently ; " there has been quite enough talk about her 

 already in connection with her marriage." Lady Dysart r.n- 

 tied her bonnet strings as if with a need of more air, 5^nd 

 flung them back over each shoulder. In the general con- 

 trariety of things, it was satisfactory to find an object so un- 

 deniably deserving of reprobation as the new Mrs. Lambe t. 

 " I call her a thorough adventuress ! " she continued. " She 

 came down here, determined to marry some one, and as 

 Mr. Hawkins escaped from her, she just snatched at the 

 next man she could find ! " 



Pamela came over and sat down on the arm of her 

 mother's chair. " Now, mamma," she said putting her arm 

 round Lady Dysart's crape-clad shoulder, ** you can't deny 

 that she knew all about the Dublin clergy and went to 

 Sunday-school regularly for ten years, and she guessed two 

 lights of an acrostic for you." 



** Yes, two that happened to be slangy ! No, my dear 

 child, I admit that she is very pretty, but, as I said before, 

 she has proved herself to be nothing but an adventuress. 

 Everyone in the country has said the same thing." 



" I can scarcely imagine anyone less like an adventuress," 

 said Christopher, with the determined quietness by which he 

 sometimes mastered his stammer. 



His mother looked at him with the most unaffected surprise. 

 " And I can scarcely imagine anyone who knows less about 

 the matter than you ! " she retorted. " Oh, my dear boy, 

 don't smoke another of those horrid things," as Christopher 

 got up abruptly and began to fumble rather aimlessly in a 

 cigarette-box on the chimney-piece, *^ I'm sure you've 

 smoked more than is good for you. You look quite white 

 already." 



He made no reply, and his mother's thoughts reverted to 

 the subject under discussion. Suddenly a little cloud of 

 memory began to appear on her mental horizon. Now that 

 she came to think of it, had not Kate Gascogne once 

 mentioned Christopher's name to her in preposterous con- 

 nection with that of the present Mrs. Lambert ? 



" Let me tell you ! " she exclaimed, her deep-set eyes 

 glowing with the triumphant eff'ort of memory, "that people 



