"You want to show him what a model place it is," cried Mrs. Chester, complacently. "Do so, Clara. _He_ will never have such a kitchen in his house." Mary Jupp delivered the message to Mr. Lake, who was still at the table, and peeling a pear for Lady Ellis. The objectionable boy had disappeared. He came away when he had finished his job, leaving the two ladies together. Mrs. Chester had hastened in dire wrath after the other of her mischievous young sons, who was climbing up a prickly tree, to the detriment of his clothes. "I had no idea until just now that Mr. Lake was a married man," observed Lady Ellis to Mary Jupp, as she leisurely eat her pear. "No! Then whom did you suppose Mrs. Lake was?" "I did not suppose anything about it; I did not know she was Mrs. Lake. Have they been married long?" "About three years." "Ah, yes; I think he said so. Any children?" "There was one. A beautiful little child; but it died. Do you not think her very lovely? It is so sweet a face!" Lady Ellis shrugged her shoulders. "She has no style. And she seems as much wrapt up in her husband as though they had been married yesterday." "Why should she not be?" bluntly asked Miss Jupp. "I only hope when I am married--if ever that's to be--that I and my husband shall be as happy and united as they are." "As _she_ is," spoke Lady Ellis. "I would not answer for him." Mary Jupp felt cross. It occurred to her that somebody might have been whispering tales about Mr. Lake's nonsensical flirtation with her sister Rose: and purely innocent nonsense, on both sides, she knew that to be. "Young Lake is one of those men who cannot live without flirtation," she observed, "who admire every woman they meet, and take care to let her know it. His wife can afford to laugh at it, knowing that his love is exclusively hers." Lady Ellis drew down the corners of her mouth and coughed a little cough of mocking disbelief; for which Mary Jupp, upright and high-principled, could have scolded her for an hour. "So very old-fashioned, those notions, my dear Miss Jupp. Love!" "Old-fashioned, are they?" fired Mary. "A woman hazards more than she perhaps bargains for, when she ties herself, for better or for worse, to one of these attractive men: but of course she must put up with the consequences." "What consequences?" exclaimed Mary Jupp, feeling herself puzzled by the speech altogether. "The seeing herself a neglected wife: the seeing others preferred before her--as she must inevitably do when her own short reign is over." "Had you to experience that?" sharply asked Mary Jupp, intending the question as a sting. "I!" equably returned Lady Ellis. "My husband had nothing attractive about him, and was as old as Adam. I spoke of the wives of fascinating men: others may humdrum on to their graves, and be at peace." "I don't see what there is to fascinate in young Lake. He is light-headed and careless, if that means fascination."