The Real Charlotte Part 1

The Real Charlotte.

by E. OE Somerville, Martin Ross

VOLUME I.

CHAPTER I.

An August Sunday afternoon in the north side of Dublin. Epitome of all that is hot, arid, and empty. Tall brick houses, browbeating each other in gloomy respectability across the white streets; broad pavements, promenaded mainly by the nomadic cat; stifling squares, wherein the infant of unfas.h.i.+onable parentage is taken for the daily baking that is its subst.i.tute for the breezes and the press of perambulators on the Bray Esplanade or the Kingstown pier. Few towns are duller out of the season than Dublin, but the dulness of its north side neither waxes nor wanes; it is immutable, unchangeable, fixed as the stars. So at least it appears to the observer whose impressions are only eye-deep, and are derived from the emptiness of the streets, the unvarying dirt of the window panes, and the almost forgotten type of ugliness of the window curtains.

But even an August Sunday in the north side has its distractions for those who know where to seek them, and there are some of a sufficiently ingenuous disposition to find in Sunday-school a social excitement that is independent of fas.h.i.+on, except so far as its slow eddies may have touched the teacher's bonnet. Perhaps it is peculiar to Dublin that Sunday-school, as an inst.i.tution, is by no means reserved for children of the poorer sort only, but permeates all ranks, and has as many recruits from the upper and middle as from the lower cla.s.ses. Certainly the excellent Mrs. Fitzpatrick, of Number O, Mountjoy Square, as she lay in mountainous repose on the sofa in her dining-room, had no thought that it was derogatory to the dignity of her daughters and her niece to sit, as they were now sitting, between the children of her grocer, Mr. Mulvany, and her chemist, Mr. Nolan. Sunday-school was, in her mind, an admirable inst.i.tution that at one and the same time cleared her house of her offspring, and spared her the complications of their religious training, and her broad, black satin-clad bosom rose and fell in rhythmic accord with the snores that were the last expression of Sabbath peace and repose.

It was nearly four o'clock, and the heat and dull clamour in the schoolhouse were beginning to tell equally upon teachers and scholars. Francie Fitzpatrick had yawned twice, though she had a sufficient sense of politeness to conceal the action behind her Bible; the pleasure of thrusting out in front of her, for the envious regard of her fellows, a new pair of side spring boots, with mock b.u.t.tons and st.i.tching, had palled upon her; the spider that had for a few quivering moments hung uncertainly above the gorgeous bonnet of Miss Bewley, the teacher, had drawn itself up again, staggered, no doubt, by the unknown tropic growths it found beneath; and the silver ring that Tommy Whitty had crammed upon her gloved finger before school, as a mark of devotion, had become perfectly immovable and was a source of at least as much anxiety as satisfaction. Even Miss Bewley's powers of exposition had melted away in the heat; she had called out her catechetical reserves, and was reduced to a dropping fire of questions as to the meaning of Scriptural names, when at length the superintendent mounted the rostrum and tapped thrice upon it. The closing hymn was sung, and then, cla.s.s by cla.s.s, the hot, tired children clattered out into the road.

On Francie rested the responsibility of bringing home her four small cousins, of ages varying from six to eleven, but this duty did not seem to weigh very heavily on her. She had many acquaintances in the Sunday-school, and with Susie Brennan's and f.a.n.n.y Hemphill's arms round her waist, and Tommy Whitty in close attendance, she was in no hurry to go home. Children are, if unconsciously, as much influenced by good looks as their elders, and even the raw angularities of fourteen, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick's taste in hats, could not prevent Francie from looking extremely pretty and piquante, as she held forth to an attentive audience on the charms of a young man who had on that day partaken of an early dinner at her Uncle Fitzpatrick's house.

Francie's accent and mode of expressing herself were alike deplorable; Dublin had done its worst for her in that respect, but unless the reader has some slight previous notion of how dreadful a thing is a pure-bred Dublin accent, it would be impossible for him to realise in any degree the tone in which she said: "But oh! Tommy Whitty! wait till I tell you what he said about the excursion! He said he'd come to it if I'd promise to stay with him the whole day; so now, see how grand I'll be! And he has a long black mustas.h.!.+" she concluded, as a side thrust at Tommy's smooth, apple cheeks.

"Oh, indeed, I'm sure he's a bewty without paint," returned the slighted Tommy, with such sarcasm as he could muster; "but unless you come in the van with me, the way you said you would, I'll take me ring back from you and give it to Lizzie Jemmison! So now!"

"Much I care!" said Francie, tossing her long golden plait of hair, and giving a defiant skip as she walked; "and what's more, I can't get it off, and n.o.body will till I die! and so now yourself!"

Her left hand was dangling over f.a.n.n.y Hemphill's shoulder, and she thrust it forward, starfish-wise, in front of Tommy Whitty's face. The silver ring glittered sumptuously on its background of crimson silk glove, and the sudden s.n.a.t.c.h that her swain made at it was as much impelled by an unworthy desire to repossess the treasure as by the pangs of wounded affection.

"G'long ye dirty fella'!" screamed Francie, in high good-humour, at the same moment eluding the s.n.a.t.c.h and whirling herself free from the winding embrace of the Misses Hemphill and Brennan; "I dare ye to take it from me!"

She was off like a lapwing down the deserted street, pursued by the more c.u.mbrous Tommy, and by the encouraging yells of the children, who were trooping along the pavement after them. Francie was lithe and swift beyond her fellows, and on ordinary occasions Tommy Whitty, with all his masculine advantage of costume and his two years of seniority, would have found it as much as he could do to catch her. But on this untoward day the traitorous new side spring boots played her false. That decorative band of white st.i.tching across the toes began to press upon her like a vice, and, do what she would, she knew that she could not keep her lead much longer. Strategy was her only resource. Swinging herself round a friendly lamp-post, she stopped short with a suddenness that compelled her pursuer to shoot past her, and with an inspiration whose very daring made it the more delirious, she darted across the street, and sprang into a milk-cart that was waiting at a door. The meek white horse went on at once, and, with a breathless, goading hiss to hasten him, she tried to gather up the reins. Unfortunately, however, it happened that these were under his tail, and the more she tugged at them the tighter he clasped them to him, and the more lively became his trot. In spite of an inexpressible alarm as to the end of the adventure, Francie still retained sufficient presence of mind to put out her tongue at her baffled enemy, as, seated in front of the milk-cans, she clanked past him and the other children. There was a chorus, in tones varying from admiration to horror of, "Oh! look at Francie Fitzpatrick!" and then Tommy Whitty's robuster accents, "Ye'd better look out! the milkman's after ye!"

Francie looked round, and with terror beheld that functionary in enraged pursuit. It was vain to try blandishments with the horse, now making for his stable at a good round trot; vainer still to pull at the reins. They were nearing the end of the long street, and Francie and the milkman, from their different points of view, were feeling equally helpless and despairing, when a young man came round the corner, and apparently taking in the situation at a glance, ran out into the road, and caught the horse by the bridle.

"Well, upon my word, Miss Francie," he said, as Miss Fitzpatrick hurriedly descended from the cart. "You're a nice young lady! What on earth are you up to now?"

"Oh, Mr. Lambert-" began Francie; but having got thus far in her statement, she perceived the justly incensed milkman close upon her, and once more taking to her heels, she left her rescuer to return the stolen property with what explanations he could. Round the corner she fled, and down the next street, till a convenient archway offered a hiding-place, and sheltering there, she laughed, now that the stress of terror was off her, till her blue eyes streamed with tears.

Presently she heard footsteps approaching, and peering cautiously out, saw Lambert striding along with the four Fitzpatrick children dancing round him, in their anxiety to present each a separate version of the escapade. The milkman was not to be seen, and Francie sallied forth to meet the party, secretly somewhat abashed, but resolved to bear an undaunted front before her cousins.

The "long black mustash," so adroitly utilised by Francie for the chastening of Tommy Whitty, was stretched in a wide smile as she looked tentatively at its owner. "Will he tell Aunt Tish?" was the question that possessed her as she entered upon her explanation. The children might be trusted. Their round, white-lashed eyes had witnessed many of her exploits, and their allegiance had never faltered; but this magnificent grown-up man, who talked to Aunt Tish and Uncle Robert on terms of equality, what trouble might he not get her into in his stupid desire to make a good story of it? "Botheration to him!" she thought, "why couldn't he have been somebody else?"

Mr. Roderick Lambert marched blandly along beside her, with no wish to change places with anyone agitating his bosom. His handsome brown eyes rested approvingly on Francie's flushed face, and the thought that mainly occupied his mind was surprise that Nosey Fitzpatrick should have had such a pretty daughter. He was aware of Francie's diffident glances, but thought they were due to his good looks and his new suit of clothes, and he became even more patronising than before. At last, quite unconsciously, he hit the dreaded point.

"Well, and what do you think your aunt will say when she hears how I found you running away in the milk-cart?"

"I don't know," replied Francie, getting very red. "Well, what will you say to me if I don't tell her?"

"Oh, Mr. Lambert, sure you won't tell mamma!" entreated the Fitzpatrick children, faithful to their leader. "Francie'd be killed if mamma thought she was playing with Tommy Whitty!"

They were nearing the Fitzpatrick mansion by this time, and Lambert stood still at the foot of the steps and looked down at the small group of pet.i.tioners with indulgent self-satisfaction.

"Well, Francie, what'll you do for me if I don't tell?"

Francie walked stiffly up the steps.

"I don't know." Then with a defiance that she was far from feeling, "You may tell her if you like!"

Lambert laughed easily as he followed her up the steps.

"You're very angry with me now, aren't you? Well, never mind, we'll be friends, and I won't tell on you this time."

CHAPTER II.

The east wind was crying round a small house in the outskirts of an Irish country town. At nightfall it had stolen across the grey expanse of Lough Moyle, and given its first shudder among the hollies and laurestinas that hid the lower windows of Tally Ho Lodge from the too curious pa.s.ser-by, and at about two o'clock of the November night it was howling so inconsolably in the great tunnel of the kitchen chimney, that Norry the Boat, sitting on a heap of tur by the kitchen fire, drew her shawl closer about her shoulders, and thought gruesomely of the Banshee.

The long trails of the monthly roses tapped and scratched against the window panes, so loudly sometimes that two cats, dozing on the rusty slab of a disused hothearth, opened their eyes and stared, with the expressionless yet wholly alert scrutiny of their race. The objects in the kitchen were scarcely more than visible in the dirty light of a hanging lamp, and the smell of paraffin filled the air. High presses and a dresser lined the walls, and on the top of the dresser, close under the blackened ceiling, it was just possible to make out the ghostly sleeping form of a c.o.c.katoo. A door at the end of the kitchen opened into a scullery of the usual prosaic, not to say odorous kind, which was now a cavern of darkness, traversed by twin green stars that moved to and fro as the lights move on a river at night, and looked like anything but what they were, the eyes of cats prowling round a scullery sink.

The tall, yellow-faced clock gave the gurgle with which it was accustomed to mark the half-hour, and the old woman, as if reminded of her weariness, stretched out her arms and yawned loudly and dismally.

She put back the locks of greyish-red hair that hung over her forehead, and, crouching over the fireplace, she took out of the embers a broken-nosed teapot, and proceeded to pour from it a mug of tea, black with long stewing. She had taken a few sips of it when a bell rang startlingly in the pa.s.sage outside, jarring the silence of the house with its sharp outcry. Norry the Boat hastily put down her mug, and scrambled to her feet to answer its summons. She groped her way up two cramped flights of stairs that creaked under her as she went, and advanced noiselessly in her stockinged feet across a landing to where a c.h.i.n.k of light came from under a door.

The door was opened as she came to it, and a woman's short thick figure appeared in the doorway.

"The mistress wants to see Susan," this person said in a rough whisper; "is he in the house?"

"I think he's below in the scullery," returned Norry; "but, my Law! Miss Charlotte, what does she want of him? Is it light in her head she is?"

"What's that to you? Go fetch him at once," replied Miss Charlotte, with a sudden fierceness. She shut the door, and Norry crept downstairs again, making a kind of groaning and lamenting as she went.

Miss Charlotte walked with a heavy step to the fireplace. A lamp was burning dully on a table at the foot of an old-fas.h.i.+oned bed, and the high foot-board threw a shadow that made it difficult to see the occupant of the bed. It was an ordinary little shabby bedroom, the ceiling, seamed with cracks, bulged down till it nearly touched the canopy of the bed. The wall paper had a pattern of blue flowers on a yellowish background; over the chimney shelf a filmy antique mirror looked strangely refined in the company of the Christmas cards and discoloured photographs that leaned against it. There was no sign of poverty, but everything was dingy, everything was tasteless, from the worn Kidderminster carpet to the illuminated text that was pinned to the wall facing the bed.

Miss Charlotte gave the fire a frugal poke, and lit a candle in the flame provoked from the sulky coals. In doing so some ashes became imbedded in the grease, and taking a hair-pin from the ponderous ma.s.s of brown hair that was piled on the back of her head, she began to sc.r.a.pe the candle clean. Probably at no moment of her forty years of life had Miss Charlotte Mullen looked more startlingly plain than now, as she stood, her squat figure draped in a magenta flannel dressing-gown, and the candle light s.h.i.+ning upon her face. The night of watching had left its traces upon even her opaque skin. The lines about her prominent mouth and chin were deeper than usual; her broad cheeks had a flabby pallor; only her eyes were bright and untired, and the thick yellow-white hand that manipulated the hair-pin was as deft as it was wont to be.

When the flame burned clearly she took the candle to the bedside, and, bending down, held it close to the face of the old woman who was lying there. The eyes opened and turned towards the overhanging face: small dim, blue eyes, full of the stupor of illness, looking out of the pathetically commonplace little old face with a far-away perplexity.

"Was that Francie that was at the door?" she said in a drowsy voice that had in it the lagging drawl of intense weakness.

Charlotte took the tiny wrist in her hand, and felt the pulse with professional attention. Her broad perceptive finger-tips gauged the forces of the little thread that was jerking in the thin network of tendons, and as she laid the hand down she said to herself, "She'll not last out the turn of the night."

"Why doesn't Francie come in?" murmured the old woman again in the fragmentary, uninflected voice that seems hardly spared from the unseen battle with death.

"It wasn't her you asked me for at all," answered Charlotte. "You said you wanted to say good-bye to Susan. Here, you'd better have a sip of this."

The old woman swallowed some brandy and water, and the stimulant presently revived unexpected strength in her.

"Charlotte," she said, "it isn't cats we should be thinking of now. G.o.d knows the cats are safe with you. But little Francie, Charlotte, we ought to have done more for her. You promised me that if you got the money you'd look after her. Didn't you now, Charlotte? I wish I'd done more for her. She's a good little thing-a good little thing-" she repeated dreamily.

Few people would think it worth their while to dispute the wandering futilities of an old dying woman, but even at this eleventh hour Charlotte could not brook the revolt of a slave.

"Good little thing!" she exclaimed, pus.h.i.+ng the brandy bottle noisily in among a crowd of gla.s.ses and medicine bottles, "a strapping big woman of nineteen! You didn't think her so good the time you had her here, and she put Susan's father and mother in the well!"

The old lady did not seem to understand what she had said.

"Susan, Susan!" she called quaveringly, and feebly patted the crochet quilt.

As if in answer, a hand fumbled at the door and opened it softly. Norry was standing there, tall and gaunt, holding in her ap.r.o.n, with both hands, something that looked like an enormous football.

"Miss Charlotte!" she whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "here's Susan for ye. He was out in the ashpit, an' I was hard set to get him, he was that wild."

Even as she spoke there was a furious struggle in the blue ap.r.o.n.

"G.o.d in Heaven! ye fool!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Charlotte. "Don't let him go!" She shut the door behind Norry. "Now, give him to me."

Norry opened her ap.r.o.n cautiously, and Miss Charlotte lifted out of it a large grey tom-cat.

"Be quiet, my heart's love," she said, "be quiet."

The cat stopped kicking and writhing, and, sprawling up on to the shoulder of the magenta dressing-gown, turned a fierce grey face upon his late captor. Norry crept over to the bed, and put back the dirty chintz curtain that had been drawn forward to keep out the draught of the door. Mrs. Mullen was lying very still; she had drawn her knees up in front of her, and the bedclothes hung sharply from the small point that they made. The big living old woman took the hand of the other old woman who was so nearly dead, and pressed her lips to it.

"Ma'am, d'ye know me?"

Her mistress opened her eyes.

"Norry," she whispered, "give Miss Francie some jam for her tea to-night, but don't tell Miss Charlotte."

"What's that she's saying?" said Charlotte, going to the other side of the bed. "Is she asking for me?"

"No, but for Miss Francie," Norry answered.

"She knows as well as I do that Miss Francie's in Dublin," said Charlotte roughly; "'twas Susan she was asking for last. Here, a'nt, here's Susan for you."

She pulled the cat down from her shoulder, and put him on the bed, where he crouched with a twitching tail, prepared for flight at a moment's notice.

He was within reach of the old lady's hand, but she did not seem to know that he was there. She opened her eyes and looked vacantly round.

"Where's little Francie? You mustn't send her away, Charlotte; you promised you'd take care of her; didn't you, Charlotte?"

"Yes, yes," said Charlotte quickly, pus.h.i.+ng the cat towards the old lady; "never fear, I'll see after her."

Old Mrs. Mullen's eyes, that had rested with a filmy stare on her niece's face, closed again, and her head began to move a little from one side to the other, a low monotonous moan coming from her lips with each turn. Charlotte took her right hand and laid it on the cat's brindled back. It rested there, unconscious, for some seconds, while the two women looked on in silence, and then the fingers drooped and contracted like a bird's claw, and the moaning ceased. There was at the same time a spasmodic movement of the gathered-up knees, and a sudden rigidity fell upon the small insignificant face.

Norry the Boat threw herself upon her knees with a howl, and began to pray loudly. At the sound the cat leaped to the floor, and the hand that had been placed upon him in the only farewell his mistress was to take, dropped stiffly on the bed. Miss Charlotte s.n.a.t.c.hed up the candle, and held it close to her aunt's face. There was no mistaking what she saw there, and, putting down the candle again, she plucked a large silk handkerchief from her pocket, and, with some hideous preliminary heavings of her shoulders, burst into transports of noisy grief.

CHAPTER III.

A Damp winter and a chilly spring had pa.s.sed in their usual mildly disagreeable manner over that small Irish country town which was alluded to in the beginning of the last chapter. The shop windows had exhibited their usual zodiacal succession, and had progressed through red comforters and woollen gloves to straw hats, tennis shoes, and coloured Summer Numbers. The residents of Lismoyle were already congratulating each other on having "set" their lodgings to the summer visitors; the steamer was plying on the lake, the militia was under canvas, and on this very fifteenth of June, Lady Dysart of Bruff was giving her first lawn-tennis party.

Miss Charlotte Mullen had taken advantage of the occasion to emerge from the mourning attire that since her aunt's death had so misbecome her sallow face, and was driving herself to Bruff in the phaeton that had been Mrs. Mullen's, and a gown chosen with rather more view to effect than was customary with her. She was under no delusion as to her appearance, and, early recognising its hopeless character, she had abandoned all superfluities of decoration. A habit of costume so defiantly simple as to border on eccentricity had at least two advantages; it freed her from the absurdity of seeming to admire herself, and it was cheap. During the late Mrs. Mullen's lifetime Charlotte had studied economy. The most reliable old persons had, she was wont to reflect, a slippery turn in them where their wills were concerned, and it was well to be ready for any contingency of fortune. Things had turned out very well after all; there had been one inconvenient legacy-that "Little Francie" to whom the old lady's thoughts had turned, happily too late for her to give any practical emphasis to them-but that bequest was of the kind that may be repudiated if desirable. The rest of the disposition had been admirably convenient, and, in skilled hands, something might even be made of that legacy. Miss Mullen thought a great deal about her legacy and the steps she had taken with regard to it as she drove to Bruff. The horse that drew her ancient phaeton moved with a dignity befitting his eight and twenty years; the three miles of level lake-side road between Lismoyle and Bruff were to him a serious undertaking, and by the time he had arrived at his destination, his mistress's active mind had pursued many pleasant mental paths to their utmost limit.

This was the first of the two catholic and comprehensive entertainments that Lady Dysart's sense of her duty towards her neighbours yearly impelled her to give, and when Charlotte, wearing her company smile, came down the steps of the terrace to meet her hostess, the difficult revelry was at its height. Lady Dysart had cast her nets over a wide expanse, and the result was not encouraging. She stood, tall, dark, and majestic, on the terrace, surveying the impracticable row of women that stretched, forlorn of men, along one side of the tennis grounds, much as Ca.s.sandra might have scanned the beleaguering hosts from the ramparts of Troy; and as she advanced to meet her latest guest, her strong clear-eyed face was perplexed and almost tragic.

"How do you do, Miss Mullen?" she said in tones of unconcealed gloom. "Have you ever seen so few men in your life? and there are five and forty women! I cannot imagine where they have all come from, but I know where I wish they would take themselves to, and that is to the bottom of the lake!"

The large intensity of Lady Dysart's manner gave unintended weight to her most trivial utterance, and had she reflected very deeply before she spoke, it might have occurred to her that this was not a specially fortunate manner of greeting a female guest. But Charlotte understood that nothing personal was intended; she knew that the freedom of Bruff had been given to her, and that she could afford to listen to abuse of the outer world with the composure of one of the inner circle.

"Well, your ladys.h.i.+p," she said, in the bluff, hearty voice which she felt accorded best with the theory of herself that she had built up in Lady Dysart's mind, "I'll head a forlorn hope to the bottom of the lake for you, and welcome, but for the honour of the house you might give me a cup o' tay first!"

Charlotte had many tones of voice, according with the many facets of her character, and when she wished to be playful she affected a vigorous brogue, not perhaps being aware that her own accent scarcely admitted of being strengthened.

This refinement of humour was probably wasted on Lady Dysart. She was an Englishwoman, and, as such, was const.i.tutionally unable to discern perfectly the subtle grades of Irish vulgarity. She was aware that many of the ladies on her visiting list were vulgar, but it was their subjects of conversation and their opinions that chiefly brought the fact home to her. Miss Mullen, au fond, was probably no less vulgar than they, but she was never dull, and Lady Dysart would suffer anything rather than dulness. It was less than nothing to her that Charlotte's mother was reported to have been in her youth a national schoolmistress, and her grandmother a bare-footed country girl. These facts of Miss Mullen's pedigree were valued topics in Lismoyle, but Lady Dysart's serene radicalism ignored the inequalities of a lower cla.s.s, and she welcomed a woman who could talk to her on spiritualism, or books, or indeed on any current topic, with a point and agreeability that made her accent, to English ears, merely the expression of a vigorous individuality. She now laughed in response to her visitor's jest, but her eye did not cease from roving over the gathering, and her broad brow was still contracted in calculation.

"I never knew the country so bereft of men or so peopled with girls! Even the little Barrington boys are off with the militia, and everyone about has conspired to fill their houses with women, and not only women but dummies!" Her glance lighted on the long bench where sat the more honourable women in midge-bitten dulness. "And there is Kate Gascogne in one of her reveries, not hearing a word that Mrs. Waller is saying to her-"

With Lady Dysart intention was accomplishment as nearly as might be. She had scarcely finished speaking before she began a headlong advance upon the objects of her diatribe, making a short cut across the corner of a lawn-tennis court, and scarcely observing the havoc that her transit wrought in the game. Charlotte was less rash. She steered her course clear of the tennis grounds, and of the bench of matrons, pa.s.sed the six Miss Beatties with a comprehensive "How are ye, girls?" and took up her position under one of the tall elm trees.

Under the next tree a few men were a.s.sembled, herding together for mutual protection after the manner of men, and laying down the law to each other about road sessions, the grand jury, and Irish politics generally. They were a fairly representative trio; a country gentleman with a grey moustache and a loud voice in which he was announcing that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to pull the rope at the execution of a certain English statesman; a slight, dejected-looking clergyman, who vied with Major Waller in his denunciations, but chastenedly, like an echo in a cathedral aisle; and a smartly dressed man of about thirty-five, of whom a more detailed description need not be given, as he has been met with in the first chapter, and the six years after nine-and-twenty do little more than mellow a man's taste in checks, and sprinkle a grey hair or two on his temples.

Miss Mullen listened for a few minutes to the melancholy pessimisms of the archdeacon, and then, interrupting Major Waller in a fine outburst on the advisability of martial law, she thrust herself and her attendant cloud of midges into the charmed circle of the smoke of Mr. Lambert's cigarette.

"Ho! do I hear me old friend the Major at politics?" she said, shaking hands effusively with the three men. "I declare I'm a better politician than any one of you! D'ye know how I served Tom Casey, the land-leaguing plumber, yesterday? I had him mending my tank, and when I got him into it I whipped the ladder away, and told him not a step should he budge till he sang 'G.o.d save the Queen!' I was arguing there half an hour with him in water up to his middle before I converted him, and then it wasn't so much the warmth of his convictions as the cold of his legs made him tune up. I call that practical politics!"

The speed and vigour with which this story was told would have astounded anyone who did not know Miss Mullen's powers of narration, but Mr. Lambert, to whom it seemed specially addressed, merely took his cigarette out of his mouth, and said, with a familiar laugh: "Practical politics, by Jove! I call it a cold water cure. Kill or cure like the rest of your doctoring, eh! Charlotte?"

Miss Mullen joined with entire good-humour in the laugh that followed.

"Oh, th' ingrat.i.tude of man!" she exclaimed. "Archdeacon, you've seen his bald scalp from the pulpit, and I ask you, now, isn't that a fresh crop he has on it? I leave it to his conscience, if he has one, to say if it wasn't my doctoring gave him that fine black thatch he has now!"

The archdeacon fixed his eyes seriously upon her; Charlotte's playfulness always alarmed and confused him.

"Do not appeal to me, Miss Mullen," he answered, in his refined, desponding voice; "my unfortunate sight makes my evidence in such a matter worth nothing; and, by the way, I meant to ask you if your niece would be good enough to help us in the choir? I understand she sings."

Charlotte interrupted him.