WVLDER'S HAjXD.
179
Lord Chelford was, indeed, approaching, only a few
hundred yards away.
"Take my arm," said Lake.
And Rachel mechanically, as story-tellers say, placed
her slender gloved hand upon his arm — the miscreant
arm that had been so nearly raised to strike her; and they
walked along, brother and sister, in the Sabbath sunset
light, to meet him.
CHAPTER XXXI.
in redman's dell.
Lord Chelford raised his hat, smiling: "I am so
very glad I met you, I was beginning to feel so solitary!"
he placed himself beside Miss Lake. "I've had such a
long walk across the park. How do you do, Lake; when
did you come?"
And so on — Lake answering and looking wonderfully
as usual.
I think Lord Chelford perceived there was something
amiss between the young people, for his eye rested on Ra-
chel with a momentary look of enquiry, unconscious, no
doubt, and quickly averted, and he went on chatting pleas-
antly; but he looked, once or twice, a little hard at Stan-
ley Lake. I don't think he had an extraordinarily good
opinion of that young gentleman. He seldom expressed
an ill one of anybody, and then it was in very measured
language. But though he never hinted at an unfavorable
estimate of the Captain, his intimacies with him were re-
served; and I think I have seen him, even when he smiled,