Lady Ellis was silent for a moment, and then lifted her head. "When we have lived in India, have travelled--in short, have rubbed off the reserve and rusticity which experience of the world only can effect, we like to speak out our opinion, and call things by their right names. Half an hour ago you were with her in that walk, talking to her; she held your arm, and she suddenly clasped her other hand over it, and kept it there, turning her face up to yours with what looked very like ardent admiration. It struck me as being not--not seemly." Mr. Lake coughed down a laugh. "She has a legal right to look in my face as ardently as she pleases: and you may fully believe me when I assure you that from her you will never witness aught unseemly. That young lady is my wife." "Your--wife!" echoed Lady Ellis, taken utterly by surprise. "My own wife." His saucy blue eyes gazed into those amazed black ones, enjoying their confusion with an exceedingly saucy expression. Lady Ellis burst into a laugh. "Well, I suppose I must beg your pardon now. We all seem to be letting ourselves in for mistakes and blunders. I thought she was a young girl, and I did not know you were married." "She does look young," he answered, his eyes following his wife's pretty figure, as she went towards the house with Mrs. Chester; "nevertheless she has been my wife these three years." "You must have married early. Is it wise, think you, of a man to do so?" "Wise?--In what respect?" "Repentance might come. Men scarcely know their own minds before thirty." "A great many of us risk it." They sat down at the dessert-table, and Mr. Lake helped her to some wine and fruit. One of the little boys ran up and clamoured for good things in the absence of his mother. Lady Ellis privately thought that children did not improve the social relations of the world. Mrs. Chester had taken Clara to look at what she called the domestic arrangements, which in reality meant the kitchens and back premises in general. Encountering Miss Jupp as they went, she turned to accompany them. "Had you come at the time you ought, I should have shown you over the house before dinner," grumbled Mrs. Chester, who could not forget the upsetting of her plans. "Of course we were very sorry," spoke Mary Jupp. "It is so tiresome to put back one's dinner after it is at the fire. I should have been more cross than you, Mrs. Chester." "What with one thing and another, I have been cross enough today," confessed Mrs. Chester, giving a jerk to her widow's cap, which never kept on two minutes together, wanting strings. "First of all, this morning, came Lady Ellis's letter to upset me, and with nothing ready for her!" "Why did she come today?" "Some whim, I suppose. It was a courteous letter of excuse--hoping I should pardon her, and begging me not to treat her as a stranger. How very handsome she is!" "Her features are handsome," rejoined Mary Jupp; "but their expression's bad." "Bad!" cried Mrs. Chester.