“For a time the generous nature of the poor people resisted all these combined causes of discontent, * * * * * yet by degrees the affection for the British cooled, and Wellington expressed his fears that a civil war would commence between the Portuguese people on the one hand, and the troops of both nations on the other.  Wherefore his activity to draw all military strength to a head, and make such an irruption into Spain, as would establish a new base of operations beyond the power of such fatal dissensions.”

Throughout the war this great captain’s hardest tasks had been to conciliate the jealous, vain-glorious Spaniard, to stimulate the laggard suspicious Portuguese, to enlighten the invincible ignorance of Regency and Juntas, in order to draw out and combine the resources of both countries with the scanty means afforded him by his own blundering government.  He was required to do great things with small means, without offending one tittle against the laws, customs and prejudices of three dissimilar nations.  He might toil, fret and fume, wearing himself to the bone, but could never get rid of this task of making ropes out of sea-sand.  So much as to the state of the country.  Let us return to our story.

L’Isle reached Elvas early in the day, and resolved to reward himself for his labors, by paying a visit to Lady Mabel; then after a conference with Lord Strathern, to sit down and write his report to Sir Rowland, on the state of the Andalusian reserve.  He knew that Sir Rowland looked for a precise and pithy statement, and L’Isle mean this to be a model for all such communications.  But fate may mar the wisest plan.

He found Lady Mabel and Mrs. Shortridge together, and soon perceived that the latter lady’s head was full of an entertainment she was about to give.

“The commissary has warned me,” she said “that from henceforth he will be ever on the move—­that he must break up his household here, and send off his heavy baggage to Lisbon.  In this he very politely includes his wife.”

“I am truly sorry to hear it,” said L’Isle, “but confess that first among a soldier’s impedimenta must be reckoned his wife.”

“I did not look for so blunt an assent to the commissary’s opinion from you,” said Mrs. Shortridge, somewhat nettled; “however, I am to go, and as many of the good folks of Elvas have been as polite to me as they know how, I wish to show my sense of it in parting.  I have invited all my Portuguese friends, with a good sprinkling of red coats to meet them.  I have put myself to infinite trouble and no little expense, meaning to have a grand evening, combining turtulia, concert and ball.  I would show these people something of society and life, then vanish from Elvas in a blaze of glory.  Now, as the rarest treat that I could offer, I had promised my guests that they should hear Lady Mabel in all her glorious richness of voice; and now she is seized with a sudden fit of modesty, and protests against being exhibited before a motly crowd like an opera singer.”