“But a lady is not quite so hardy or fearless as a soldier,” said Mrs. Shortridge, “and needs more substantial shelter and protection than a canvas wall.”

“I have some thoughts of getting rooms in the barracks,” said Shortridge; “but it is not pleasant for a lady to be in the midst of the rank and file.”

“Of course not.  By the by,” said L’Isle, as if he had just thought of it, “I intend, as soon as I get quite well, to take quarters at the barracks; I lodge too far from the regiment now.  I may as well hasten my removal, and transfer my present abode to you.  My house is large, well situated, and not more dilapidated than every thing else is in this country.  It will suit Mrs. Shortridge as well as a Portuguese house can suit an English lady.”

“But I cannot think of turning you out of it,” said Mrs. Shortridge.  “You are still an invalid, and need every comfort and convenience about you.”

“I am nearly as well as I ever was in my life,” answered L’Isle; “a little like the lean knight of La Mancha, it is true, but time and good feeding will soon cure that.  And, let me tell you, good feeding is the order of the day here just now.  I am only afraid we will eat up the country around, before the opening of the campaign.  But my present house has a fault to me, which will be none to you.  There is no stabling for my horses, unless I follow the Portuguese custom, and lodge them in the ground-floor of the house.  I have to keep them at the barracks, and like to be so quartered that I can put my foot in the stirrup at a minute’s warning.”

The commissary and his wife made many scruples at accepting his offer, but L’Isle overruled them, and at length it was settled that he should march out at the end of three days, and Mrs. Shortridge and suite should garrison the vacant post.

“And now I will leave you,” said L’Isle; “I will finish my visit when you are more suitably lodged.  I know how annoying it must be to a neat English woman to receive her friends in such a place as this.”  And he left Mr. and Mrs. Commissary full of gratitude for his attentions, and of a growing conviction that they were people of some importance and fashion.

The military gentlemen in Elvas had, most of them, abundant leisure on their hands, and, like the Athenians in St. Paul’s day, spent their time in little else “than either to tell or to hear some new thing every day.”  Colonel Bradshawe, strolling about the praca with this praiseworthy object, had the luck to meet with Adjutant Meynell, and at once began to pump him for news.  But the adjutant, being a man of the same kidney, needed no pumping at all.  He at once commenced laying open to the colonel, under the strictest injunctions to secrecy, the thing weighing most on his mind, which was the curious little conversation he had just held with his own colonel, not forgetting to give a few extra touches to the expressions of satisfaction that the