The Real Charlotte. Ross Martin

      “Well, I must have somebody; I can’t get my habit on,” the voice had wailed in reply. “Couldn’t you come, Norry?”

      As we have said, Norry ascended the stairs with wrath in her heart, as gruesome a lady’s-maid as could well be imagined, with an apron mottled with grease spots, and a stale smell of raw onions pervading her generally. Francie was standing in front of the dim looking-glass with which Charlotte chastened the vanity of her guests, trying with stiff and tired fingers to drag the buttons of a brand new habit through the unyielding buttonholes that tailors alone have the gift of making, and Norry’s anger was forgotten in prayerful horror, as her eyes wandered from the hard felt hat to the trousered ankle that appeared beneath the skimpy and angular skirt.

      “The Lord look down in pity on thim that cut that petticoat!” she said. “Sure, it’s not out in the sthreets ye’re goin’ in the like o’ that! God knows it’d be as good for ye to be dhressed like a man altogether!”

      “I wouldn’t care what I was dressed like if I could only make the beastly thing meet,” said Francie, her face flushed with heat and effort; “wasn’t I the fool to tell him to make it tight in the waist!”

      The subsequent proceedings were strenuous, but in the end successful, and finally Miss Fitzpatrick walked stiffly downstairs, looking very slender and tall, with the tail of the dark green habit—she had felt green to be the colour consecrated to sport—drawn tightly round her, and a silver horse-shoe brooch at her throat.

      Charlotte was standing at the open hall door talking to Mr. Lambert.

      “Come along, child,” she said genially, “you’ve been so long adorning yourself that nothing but his natural respect for the presence of a lady kept this gentleman from indulging in abusive language.”

      Charlotte, in her lighter moods, was addicted to a ponderous persiflage, the aristocratic foster-sister of her broader peasant jestings in the manner of those whom she was fond of describing as “the bar purple.”

      Mr. Lambert did not trouble himself to reply to this sally. He was looking at the figure in the olive-green habit that was advancing along the path of sunlight to the doorway, and thinking that he had done well to write that letter on the subject of the riding that Francie might expect to have at Lismoyle. Charlotte turned her head also to look at the radiant, sunlit figure.

      “Why, child, were you calling Norry just now to melt you down and pour you into that garment? I never saw such a waist! Take care and don’t let her fall off, Roddy, or she’ll snap in two!” She laughed loudly and discordantly, looking to Mr. Lambert’s groom for the appreciation that was lacking in the face of his master; and during the arduous process of getting Miss Fitzpatrick into her saddle she remained on the steps, offering facetious suggestions and warnings, with her short arms akimbo, and a smile that was meant to be jovial accentuating the hard lines of her face.

      At last the green habit was adjusted, the reins placed properly between Francie’s awkward fingers, and Mr. Lambert had mounted his long-legged young chestnut and was ready to start.

      “Don’t forget Lucy expects you to tea, Charlotte,” he said as he settled himself in his saddle.

      “And don’t you forget what I told you,” replied Charlotte, sinking her voice confidentially; “don’t mind her if she opens her mouth wide; it’ll take less to shut it than ye’d think.”

      Lambert nodded and rode after Francie, who, in compliance with the wishes of the black mare, had hurried on towards the gate. The black mare was a lady of character, well-mannered but firm, and the mere sit of the saddle on her back told her that this was a case when it would be well to take matters into her own control; she accordingly dragged as much of the reins as she required from Francie’s helpless hands, and by the time she had got on to the high road, had given her rider to understand that her position was that of tenant at will.

      They turned their backs on the town, and rode along the dazzling, dusty road, that radiated all the heat of a blazing afternoon.

      “I think he did you pretty well with that habit,” remarked Lambert presently. “What’s the damage to be?”

      “What do you think?” replied Francie gaily, answering one question with another after the manner of her country.

      “Ten?”

      “Ah, go on! Where’d I get ten pounds? He said he’d only charge me six because you recommended me, but I can tell him he’ll have to wait for his money.”

      “Why, are you hard up again?”

      Francie looked up at him and laughed with unconcern that was not in the least affected.

      “Of course I am! Did you ever know me that I wasn’t?”

      Lambert was silent for a moment or two, and half unconsciously his thoughts ran back over the time, six years ago now, when he had first met Francie. There had always been something exasperating to him in her brilliant indifference to the serious things of life. Her high spirits were as impenetrable as a coat of mail; her ignorance of the world was at once sublime and enraging. She had not seemed in the least impressed by the fact that he, whom up to this time she had known as merely a visitor at her uncle’s house, a feature of the Lawn-Tennis tournament week, and a person with whom to promenade Merrion Square while the band was playing, was in reality a country gentleman, a J.P., and a man of standing, who owned as good horses as anyone in the county. She even seemed as impervious as ever to the pathos of his position in having thrown himself and his good looks away upon a plain woman six or seven years older than himself. All these things passed quickly through his mind, as if they found an accustomed groove there, and mingled acidly with the disturbing subconsciousness that the mare would inevitably come home with a sore back if her rider did not sit straighter than she was doing at present.

      “Look here, Francie,” he said at last, with something of asperity, “it’s all very fine to humbug now, but if you don’t take care you’ll find yourself in the county court some fine day. It’s easier to get there than you’d think,” he added gloomily, “and then there’ll be the devil to pay, and nothing to pay him with; and what’ll you do then?”

      “I’ll send for you to come and bail me out!” replied Francie without hesitation, giving an unconsidered whack behind the saddle as she spoke. The black mare at once showed her sense of the liberty by kicking up her heels in a manner that lifted Francie a hand’s-breadth from her seat, and shook her foot out of the stirrup. “Gracious!” she gasped, when she had sufficiently recovered herself to speak; “what did he do? Did he buck-jump? Oh, Mr. Lambert—” as the mare, satisfied with her protest, broke into a sharp trot, “do stop him; I can’t get my foot into the stirrup!”

      Lambert, trotting serenely beside her on his tall chestnut, watched her precarious bumpings for a minute or two with a grin, then he stretched out a capable hand, and pulled the mare into a walk.

      “Now, where would you be without me?” he inquired.

      “Sitting on the road,” replied Francie. “I never felt such a horrid rough thing—and look at Mrs. Lambert looking at me over the wall! Weren’t you a cad that you wouldn’t stop him before?”

      In the matter of exercise, Mrs. Lambert was one of those people who want but little here below, nor want that little long. The tour of the two acres that formed the demesne of Rosemount was generally her limit, and any spare energy that remained to her after that perambulation was spent in taking weeds out of the garden path with a lady-like cane-handled spud. This implement was now in her gauntletted hand, and she waved it feebly to the riders as they passed, while Muffy stood in front of her and barked with asthmatic fury.

      “Make Miss Fitzpatrick come in to tea on her way home, Roderick,” she called, looking admiringly at the girl with kind eyes that held no spark of jealousy of her beauty and youth. Mrs. Lambert was one of the women who sink prematurely and unresistingly into the sloughs of middle-age. For her there had been no intermediary period of anxious