izing, L'Isle had mounted
his horse, and was riding slowly back to his quarters, meditating and
soliloquizing, too.

"What on earth was Lord Strathern dreaming of, when he brought his
daughter out here--and such a daughter--to preside over his house and
his table? She might as well take her seat at the head of a regimental
mess-table. We know his habits of life. He cannot dine comfortably
without half a dozen fast fellows about him. To make it worse, has a
new set every day. And with his notions of hospitality, all are made
free of the house. Of course, they become her companions, and to such
a degree of freedom, that she can only get out of their way by
shutting herself up in her chamber. She can scarcely have a female
companion an hour in the week; for the few of our ladies here have no
leisure to be trotting out of Elvas, down to headquarters, to play
chaperon to a young girl who ought to be in England."

"Here is a man," continued L'Isle to himself, in an indignant tone,
and so loud that his servant spurred up from behind him to see if he
was wanted. "Here is a man who has been near forty years in the
service, and has not yet found out what kind of women are made out of
these garrison girls. Bold, flippant creatures, light infantry in
petticoats, destitute of the delicacy and modesty, without which a
woman may be honest by good luck, but can never be a lady deserving
the name.

"She seems to retain yet the air and manner, and, I trust, the modesty
and purity of mind that should grace such beauty. But how will it be
six months hence? Her situation is absolutely improper. Lord Strathern
has shown himself no more fit to bring up such a daughter, or even to
take charge of her, after some fitter person has brought her up, than
he is to say mass." For here L'Isle's eye fell on a fat priest,
toiling up the hill beside him. "Though he may be as fit for that as
some of these gentry. No more fit," continued he, struggling after
another simile, "than for a professor of Greek literature." For during
his late solitude his thoughts had often wandered back to his old
haunts, before he had broken off a promising career at Oxford, to join
the first British expedition that had come out to Portugal nearly five
years ago.

"I am sorry for her, upon my soul I am. She would make so fine a woman
in proper hands! I wonder if some remedy cannot be found against the
effects of her father's folly--his forgetfulness of what is due to
mai