The young lady bent over her netting; she had made a long stitch. Glancing up, she saw those attractive eyes fastened on her. "Mrs. Chester seems to wish to keep you in order," she remarked, bending them again. "She does. It is her vocation. I listen to her pretty dutifully, and when her back's turned have a good laugh over it. Allow me to try and get that knot undone for you; it is giving you trouble." "Why, what do you know about netting?" she asked, gaily. "A great deal. I netted a boy's fishing-net once. Those long stitches are the very plague." "A fishing-net!" she laughed. "Well, perhaps you did; but what do you think you could do to this fine silk: you, with your man's fingers?" "I can try, so as to save the trouble to you." He bent as he spoke, and attempted gently to draw the work from her. She kept it tight. It really looked as though they had no objection, either of them, to lapse into a flirtation, when at that moment voices were heard, and Mr. Lake looked up. Passing across the shrubbery, by an intersecting walk, was Oliver Jupp, with a young lady by his side. She turned her head, and stood still for a moment, calling out to Mrs. Chester's children, who were behind, so that Mr. Lake had a view of her face. "Who the deuce has Jupp picked up now?" murmured Mr. Lake, in a half-whisper. "She's an uncommon pretty girl." The lady also looked at them, letting her netting fall on her lap. "Do you know who that young lady is?" he asked. She disengaged the string from her foot, got up, and looked from the door. Mrs. Chester's children ran across the shrubbery with fleet feet and noisy tongues, and the sound of their voices faded away in the distance. "It is a Miss Clapperton. Mrs. Chester introduced her to me by that name. Lydia Clapperton, I think, she called her." Mr. Lake stared in his surprise. "_That_ Lydia Clapperton!" "Mrs. Chester certainly called her so." "Why, then--who are you?" "I? Oh, I am the Indian Begum; but I did not come on an elephant." His pulses stood still for a moment. But he thought she was playing a joke upon him. "You are not--you cannot be--Lady Ellis!" "I am indeed. The old relict of Colonel Sir George Ellis, K.C.B." Never in all his life had Robert Lake been so taken to, never had he felt more thoroughly confused and ashamed. The hot crimson mounted to his temples. Lady Ellis had sat down again, and was quietly going on with her work. "I humbly beg your pardon, Lady Ellis," he said, standing before her as shamefaced as any convicted schoolboy. "I cannot expect you to accord it to me, but I most sincerely beg it." "I think I must accord it to you," she answered, in a pretty tantalizing sort of manner. "Your offence was not against _me_, but against some fabled monster of your fancy. You shall sketch her still after dinner for private circulation." The sound of a gong as she spoke gave notice that dinner was ready. Mr. Lake held out his hand with hesitation.