‘Well,’ said I, ’they are fine troops, your British troops in the Peninsula.  A young gentleman of spirit may well be proud to be engaged at the head of such soldiers.’

‘I know that,’ he said; ’I think of nothing else.  I think shame to be dangling here at home and going through with this foolery of education, while others, no older than myself, are in the field.’

‘I cannot blame you,’ said I.  ‘I have felt the same myself.’

‘There are—­there are no troops, are there, quite so good as ours?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ said I, ’there is a point about them:  they have a defect,- -they are not to be trusted in a retreat.  I have seen them behave very ill in a retreat.’

‘I believe that is our national character,’ he said—­God forgive him!—­with an air of pride.

’I have seen your national character running away at least, and had the honour to run after it!’ rose to my lips, but I was not so ill advised as to give it utterance.  Every one should be flattered, but boys and women without stint; and I put in the rest of the afternoon narrating to him tales of British heroism, for which I should not like to engage that they were all true.

‘I am quite surprised,’ he said at last.  ’People tell you the French are insincere.  Now, I think your sincerity is beautiful.  I think you have a noble character.  I admire you very much.  I am very grateful for your kindness to—­to one so young,’ and he offered me his hand.

‘I shall see you again soon?’ said I.

‘Oh, now!  Yes, very soon,’ said he.  ’I—­I wish to tell you.  I would not let Flora—­Miss Gilchrist, I mean—­come to-day.  I wished to see more of you myself.  I trust you are not offended:  you know, one should be careful about strangers.’

I approved his caution, and he took himself away:  leaving me in a mixture of contrarious feelings, part ashamed to have played on one so gullible, part raging that I should have burned so much incense before the vanity of England; yet, in the bottom of my soul, delighted to think I had made a friend—­or, at least, begun to make a friend—­of Flora’s brother.

As I had half expected, both made their appearance the next day.  I struck so fine a shade betwixt the pride that is allowed to soldiers and the sorrowful humility that befits a captive, that I declare, as I went to meet them, I might have afforded a subject for a painter.  So much was high comedy, I must confess; but so soon as my eyes lighted full on her dark face and eloquent eyes, the blood leaped into my cheeks—­and that was nature!  I thanked them, but not the least with exultation; it was my cue to be mournful, and to take the pair of them as one.

‘I have been thinking,’ I said, ’you have been so good to me, both of you, stranger and prisoner as I am, that I have been thinking how I could testify to my gratitude.  It may seem a strange subject for a confidence, but there is actually no one here, even of my comrades, that knows me by my name and title.  By these I am called plain Champdivers, a name to which I have a right, but not the name which I should bear, and which (but a little while ago) I must hide like a crime.  Miss Flora, suffer me to present to you the Vicomte Anne de Keroual de Saint-Yves, a private soldier.’