“Such an enthusiastic botanist must become an adept,” said L’Isle.  “I suppose you see in Portugal nothing but a land of rare and varied vegetation?”

“By no means.  I am not wedded to one pursuit; or gifted with but one taste.  I have eyes for other things beside flowers, and shall seize every opportunity of seeing and knowing something of the people of the country.”

“The people, the real people,” said L’Isle, “both of this country and of Spain, are the peasantry.  They are chiefly agricultural countries, and the rural, or rather village population forms the bulk of both nations, and the best part of them.”

“It is the peasantry, the dear, natural, picturesque peasantry that I most want to know.”

“I am astonished to hear you say so, Lady Mabel.  The ignorant, filthy, superstitious creatures!” exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge, with an air of infinite disgust.  “Their fidalgos, as they call their gentry, are bad enough; but as for the common people, any familiarity with them, sufficient to enable you to know them, would be too disgusting.  They may be picturesque; so let us confine them to their place in the picture.  There alone it is that they do not bring their savor of garlic with them,” and she here buried her pretty little turned-up nose in a bunch of Lady Mabel’s most fragrant flowers.

“Give me those flowers, Mrs. Shortridge; you handle them so rudely, any one might see that you are no botanist.  I had just laid them aside to be pressed.  And as for the poor Portuguese, I mean to know them as well and despise them as little as I can, and even hope to learn something through them, if not from them.  Colonel L’Isle, I have mastered already all the ordinary phrases of Portuguese salutation and compliment, which you know are much more various and cumbrous than in our direct, blunt English.  I can already be as polite as the most courteous native, and that is, at least, the beginning of conversation.  I can ask, too, for the necessaries of life, and inquire my road, should I chance to lose it.  Let a woman alone for getting the tongues.  I hold frequent conferences with Antonio Lobo, the peasant who keeps our orchard at head-quarters, and have daily talks with our Portuguese chamber-maid, and can find fault with her, not to say scold, in good set terms.  The awkward creature gives me abundant provocation for scolding, and for not forgetting your advice about vociferation and gesticulation.”

“You do well to remember it,” said L’Isle; “it will help you on famously.”

“I had some thoughts,” she continued, “in order to lose no opportunity of familiarizing myself with these tongues, of saying my prayers in Spanish of a morning, and Portuguese at night.  But a scruple of conscience deterred me from attempting, in prayer, to kill two birds with one stone.”

“I think,” said L’Isle, laughing, “that your scruple was not out of place.”

“Yet you know that Charles V. held that God should never be addressed but in Spanish.”