The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [1]
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 Fanny 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 mustash!” 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 nobody will till I die! and so now yourself!”
Her left hand was dangling over Fanny 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 snatch 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 snatch 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 cumbrous 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 stitching 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,