hospitable mansion.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Here on the clear, cold Ezla's breezy side,
My hand amidst her ringlets wont to rove;
She proffered now the lock, and now denied--
With all the baby playfulness of love.

"Here the false maid, with many an artful tear,
Made me each rising thought of doubt discover;
And vowed and wept till hope had ceased to fear--
Ah me! beguiling, like a child, her lover."

Southey, _from the Spanish_.

Lord Strathern's anger was not unlike a thunderstorm, violent and
loud, but not very lasting. It had spent its worst fury last night;
but Lady Mabel still heard the occasional rumbling of the thunder in
the morning, while seated, with her father, at an unusually early
breakfast; for he had before him no short day's journey over the rough
country between Elvas and Alcantara. Sleep may have dulled the edge of
his anger against L'Isle, but he had not yet forgotten or forgiven
him. As he kissed his daughter before he mounted his horse--for she
had followed him into the court--he said: "Do not forget that fellow
L'Isle, Mabel; keep him here, and make a fool of him, and I will
expose and laugh at him to-morrow in Alcantara."

Now, Lady Mabel had forgotten neither L'Isle, nor his offences. She
was indignant at his presumptuous censure of her father, as unjust and
disrespectful to him, and showing too little consideration for
herself. In short, it was, as Colonel Bradshawe had insinuated, an
indignity to the whole house of Stewart of Strathern. It must be
resented. Yet she could not resolve to turn her back upon him, and
discard him altogether, as she was pledged to do, as one
alternative. She thought it a far fitter punishment to compel him to
keep his appointment with her, and make Sir Rowland wait, fretting and
fuming for the intelligence he longed for, and which L'Isle alone
could give him. She reveled in the idea of making L'Isle turn his back
on military duty to obey her behest:

"How she would make him fawn, and beg and seek,
And wait the season and observe the times,
And spend his prodigal wit in bootless rhymes."

But then L'Isle was so punctilious on points of duty, and Major Conway
had been so confident that she could not detain him in Elvas, that she
begun to doubt it herself, and resolved to spare no pains to gain her
end. So she at once sat down and penned an artful note; then calling
for her fine footman, dispatche