Why do you not give him a hint?" asked Hatton, "perhaps he has
forgotten it."

"He is your colonel, and the hint would come better from you."

"Thank you," said Hatton. "But in our regiment, it is contrary to the
etiquette to hint to the colonel that he is neglecting his duty."

"But it seems," said Goring, "that the rule does not apply to the
brigade. The major tells me that L'Isle has freely censured my lord's
remissness, and urged him to enforce more stringent discipline."

"How did my lord take it?"

"Like a slap in the face," answered Goring. "At least he treated it as
a great piece of presumption, and L'Isle was thoroughly angered at the
rough answer he got. Indeed, Conway thinks that there is nothing but
ill blood between them."

"That does not look much like it," said Hatton, glancing at Lady
Mabel, with L'Isle at her elbow.

"Let us go and beat about the bushes; we may start some thing worth
chasing!"

The two friends, looking like a greyhound and a bull-terrier coupled
together, proceeded to hunt in couple, by thrusting themselves into
the cluster of gentlemen around Lady Mabel. Hatton, with a little
start of admiring surprise, praised the taste displayed in her dress,
regretted her being so late in adopting it, it so became her. He
looked round, appealing to the bystanders, all of whom assented to his
opinion, except the discriminating Goring, who asserted that it was
not the costume which became Lady Mabel, but Lady Mabel who set off
the costume, and he carried the popular voice with him. "No head looks
so well under a Turk's turban as a Christian's," he continued, "and no
native could show off the national dress here like a genuine English
beauty." Lady Mabel had learned to listen complacently to the broadest
language of admiration.

There were handsome women present--for Elvas could boast its share of
beauty--but none to rival hers; the more conspicuous, too, from being
loveliness of a different type, and not likely to be overlooked among
the dumpy Portuguese ladies, few indeed of whom equaled her in
height. Lady Mabel would have been no woman had she not enjoyed the
admiration she excited; but she remembered the business of the night,
when Goring, bowing to L'Isle, spoke of the unexpected pleasure of
seeing him here.

At once interrupting him, she exclaimed: "It is probably the last time
we shall have the pleasure of meeting our friends of Elvas, so I at
least have come to devote myself exclu