The Real Charlotte 379 



shutter open with the largest potato, and, pinning up her 

 skirt, fell to work. 



She had been hammering and sawing for a quarter of an 

 hour when she heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs on the 

 cobble-stones of the yard, and, getting up from her knees, 

 advanced to the window with caution and looked out. It 

 was Mr. Lambert, in the act of pulling up his awkward 

 young horse, and she stood looking down at him in silence 

 while he dismounted, with a remarkable expression on her 

 face, one in which some acute mental process was mixed 

 with the half-unconscious and yet all-observant recognition 

 of an intensely familiar object. 



''Hullo, Roddy!" she called out at last, "is that you? 

 What brings you over so early ? " 



Mr. Lambert started with more violence than the occa- 

 sion seemed to demand. 



" Hullo ! " he replied, m a voice not like his own, " is 

 that where you are ? " 



" Yes, and it's where I'm going to stay. This is the kind 

 of fancy work I'm at," brandishing her saw ; " so if you 

 want to talk to me you must come up here." 



" All right," said Lambert, gloomily, " I'll come up as 

 soon as I put the colt in the stable." 



It is a fact so improbable as to be worth noting, that 

 before Lambert found his way up the ladder, Miss Mullen 

 had unpinned her skirt and fastened up the end of a plait 

 that had escaped from the massive coils at the back of her 

 head. 



" Well, and where's the woman that owns you ? " she 

 asked, beginning to work again, while her visitor stood in 

 obvious discomfort, with his head touching the rafters, and 

 the light from the low window striking sharply up against 

 his red and heavy eyes. 



"At home," he replied, almost vacantly. "I'd have 

 been here half an hour ago or more," he went on after a 

 moment or two, " but the colt cast a shoe, and I had to go 

 on to the forge beyond the cross to get it put on." 



Charlotte, with a flat pencil in her mouth, grunted re- 

 sponsively, while she measured off a piece of board, and, 

 holding it with her knee on the body of a legless wheel- 

 barrow, began to saw it across. Lambert looked on, pro- 

 voked and disconcerted by this engrossing industry. With 



