• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1714 0

ears, while she tried in different ways to answer the question of how she was to pay for the dresses that she had bought to take to Lismoyle. Twenty-five pounds a year does not go far when more than half of it is expended upon board and lodging, and a whole quarter has been anticipated to pay for a summer visit, and Lambert’s prophecy that she would find herself in the county court some day, seemed not unlikely to come true. In her pocket was a letter from a Dublin shop, containing more than a hint of legal proceedings; and even if she were able to pay them a temporising two pounds in a month, there still would remain five pounds due, and she would not have a farthing left to go on with. Everything was at its darkest for her. Her hardy, supple nature was dispirited beyond it power of reaction, and now and then the remembrance of the Sundays of last summer caught her, till the pain came in her throat, and the gaslight spread into shaking stars.

The service went on, and Francie rose and knelt mechanically with the rest of the congregation. She was not irreligious, and even the name of scepticism was scarcely understood by her, but she did not consider that religion was applicable to love affairs and bills; her mind was too young and shapeless for anything but a healthy, negligent belief in what she had been taught, and it did not enter into her head to utilise religion as a last resource, when everything else had turned out a failure. She regarded it with respect, and believed that most people grew good when they grew old, and the service passed over her head with a vaguely pleasing effect of music and light. As she came out into the dark lofty porch a man stepped forward to meet her. Francie started violently.

“Oh, goodness gracious!” she cried, “you frightened my life out!”

But for all that, she was glad to see Mr. Lambert.

* * *

CHAPTER XXXVII.

That evening when Mrs. Fitzpatrick was putting on her best cap her long cameo ear-rings she said to her husband:

“Well now, Robert, you mark words, he’s after her.”

“Tchah!” replied Mr. Fitzpatrick, who was not in a humour to admit that any woman could be attractive, owing to the postponement of his tea by his wife so that cakes might be baked in Mr. Lambert’s honour; “you can’t see a man without thinking he’s in love with someone or other.”

“I suppose you think it’s to see yourself he’s come all the way from Lismoyle,” rejoined Mrs. Fitzpatrick with becoming spirit, “and says he’s going to stop at Breslin’s Hotel for a week.”

“Oh, very well, have it your own way,” said Mr. Fitzpatrick acrimoniously, “I suppose you have it all settled, and he’ll be married to her by special license before the week’s out.”

“Well, I don’t care, Robert, You wouldn’t think to look at him that he’d only buried his wife four months and a half ago—though I will say he’s in deep mourning —but for all that no one’d blame him that he didn’t think much of that poor creature, and ‘twould be a fine match for Francie if she’d take him.”

“Would she take him!” echoed Mr. Fitzpatrick scornfully; “would a duck swim? I never saw the woman yet that wouldn’t half hang herself to get married!”

“Ah! have done being so cross, Robert, Christmas day and all; I wonder you married at all since you think so little of women.”

Finding this argument not easy to answer, Mr. Fitzpatrick said nothing, and his wife, too much interested to linger over side issues, continued,

“This girls say they heard him asking her to drive to the Dargle with him to-morrow, and he’s brought a grand box of sweets for the childern as a Christmas box, and six lovely pair of gloves for Francie! ‘Pon me word, Icall her a very lucky girl!”

“Well, if I was a woman it isn’t that fellow I’d fancy,” said Mr. Fitzpatrick, unexpectedly changing his ground, “but as, thank God, I’m not, it’s no affair of mine.” Having delivered himself of this sentiment, Mr. Fitzpatrick went downstairs. The smell of hot cakes rose deliciously upon the air, and, as his niece emerged from the kitchen with a plateful of them in her hand, and called to him to