Her victim took up the photographs, and turning them round, revealed two old pictures of Lambert in riding clothes, with Francie beside him in a very badly made habit, with her hair down her back.
“What d’ye think of that?” said Charlotte. She was gripping Mrs. Lambert’s sloping shoulder, and her breath was coming hard and short. “Now, get out her letters. There they are in the corner!”
“Ah, she’s only a child in that picture,” said Mrs. Lambert in a tone of relief, as she hurriedly put the photographs back.
“Open the letters and ye’ll see what sort of a child she was.”
Mrs. Lambert made no further demur. She took out the bundle that Charlotte pointed to, and drew the top one from its retaining india-rubber strap. Even in affairs of the heart Mr. Lambert was a tidy man.
“My dear Mr. Lambert,” she read aloud, in a deprecating, tearful voice that was more than ever like the quivering chirrup of a turkey-hen, “the cake was scrumptious, all the girls were after me for a bit of it, and asking where I got it, but I wouldn’t tell. I put it under my pillow three nights, but all I dreamt of was Uncle Robert walking round and round Stephen’s Green in his night-cap. You must have had a grand wedding. Why didn’t you ask me there to dance at it? So now no more from your affectionate friend, F. Fitzpatrick.”
Mrs. Lambert leaned back, and her hands fell into her lap.
“Well, thank God there’s no harm in that, Charlotte,” she said, closing her eyes with a sigh that might have been relief, though her voice sounded a little dreamy and bewildered.
“Ah, you began at the wrong end,” said Charlotte, little attentive to either sigh or tone, “that was written five years ago. Here, what’s in this?” She indicated the one lowest in the packet.
Mrs. Lambert opened her eyes.