ghter, "and so it is easy to turn them into
officers." Then addressing the young man in French, he said, "Tell me,
my good man, what regiment have you served in?" The young man nudged his
second cousin's godson's father gently with his elbow, and suppressing
an ironic smile, replied that he had served in the Infantry of the
Guard, and that he had just quitted the Seventh Regiment of Light
Infantry.

"Were you at Waterloo? You are very young!"

"I beg your pardon, colonel, that was my only campaign."

"It counts as two," said the colonel.

The young Corsican bit his lips.

"Papa," said Miss Lydia in English, "do ask him if the Corsicans are
very fond of their Buonaparte."

Before the colonel could translate her question into French, the young
man answered in fairly good English, though with a marked accent:

"You know, mademoiselle, that no man is ever a prophet in his own
country. We, who are Napoleon's fellow-countrymen, are perhaps less
attached to him than the French. As for myself, though my family was
formerly at enmity with his, I both love and admire him."

"You speak English!" exclaimed the colonel.

"Very ill, as you may perceive!"

Miss Lydia, though somewhat shocked by the young man's easy tone, could
not help laughing at the idea of a personal enmity between a corporal
and an emperor. She took this as a foretaste of Corsican peculiarities,
and made up her mind to note it down in her journal.

"Perhaps you were a prisoner in England?" asked the colonel.

"No, colonel, I learned English in France, when I was very young, from a
prisoner of your nation."

Then, addressing Miss Nevil:

"Mattei tells me you have just come back from Italy. No doubt,
mademoiselle, you speak the purest Tuscan--I fear you'll find it
somewhat difficult to understand our dialect."

"My daughter understands every Italian dialect," said the colonel. "She
has the gift of languages. She doesn't get it from me."

"Would mademoiselle understand, for instance, these lines from one of
our Corsican songs in which a shepherd says to his shepherdess:

"S'entrassi 'ndru paradisu santu, santu,
E nun truvassi a tia, mi n'escriria."

("If I entered the holy land of paradise
and found thee not, I would depart!")

--_Serenata di Zicavo_.

Miss Lydia did understand. She thought the quotation bold, and the look
which accompanied it still bolder, and replied, with a blush, "Capisco."

"And are you going b