“Curious, but true.  This is capital port,” interjected the colonel, emptying his glass.  “We drank no such stuff as this during the last campaign.  I would not disgust you with a detail of our privations; but you must know, Lady Mabel, that during the whole march from Madrid to Burgos, and thence, in retreat, to Ciudad Rodrigo, I never tasted a bottle of wine that deserved the name, except one of Peralta, of which I feel bound to make honorable mention.  I met with it by great good luck at the posada at Buitrago; but when I called for another, it was so excellent that the landlord had drank all himself.  The stuff we had to drink was made by pouring water on the skins of grapes already pressed.  After they had been well macerated in it, it was allowed to ferment and grow sour, then sold to us at the price of good liquor.”

“That accounts,” said Lady Mabel, “for the provident care you lately showed, in laying in a stock of better liquor for your winter’s use.  Is it true that you sent a special agent to Xeres de la Frontera, to select the best sherry for the regimental mess?”

“Not exactly a special agent,” said the colonel, disclaiming it with a gentle wave of the hand; “but, finding a trusty person, and a capital judge, going thither, we did charge him with a little commission that way.”

“I was sorry to hear of your disappointment,” added she, in a commiserating tone.  “I am told that he found that the firm of Soult, Victor & Co., had already taken up all the oldest and best wine on credit, that is, without paying for it; and you had to put up with new and inferior brands, or go without any.”

“It is but too true,” said the colonel, with a sigh.  “Those rascally Frenchmen had drained the country of everything worth drinking; our agent, very wisely, under the circumstances, made no purchase there, and I am glad of it; for I have since learned, that the Amontillado, which had been recommended to us as the dryest of sherry wines, is made from a variety of grapes plucked before they are ripe.”

“How lucky,” said Lady Mabel, in a congratulatory tone, “that you have since found out that this wine is made of sour grapes.”

A faint suspicion that she was laughing at him induced him to change the topic.  “You were never abroad before, I believe.  This part of the country has some drawbacks; but I think you will find it, during the winter, a very pleasant part of the world.”

“We will all endeavor to make it so to you, Lady Mabel,” said Major Warren, who, impatient of his superior’s monopoly, here tried to edge in a word.  But the colonel cut him short with “That’s a mere truism, Warren, a self-evident proposition.  Let us have nothing more of that sort.  One of the peculiarities of this climate, Lady Mabel, is that it has a double spring:  one in February and another in April.  Then we will see you take your appropriate place in the picture, representing the heyday of youth in the midst of spring, and beauty, surrounded by flowers.”