" For here L'Isle's eye fell on a fat priest,
toiling up the hill beside him. "Though he may be as fit for that as
some of these gentry. No more fit," continued he, struggling after
another simile, "than for a professor of Greek literature." For during
his late solitude his thoughts had often wandered back to his old
haunts, before he had broken off a promising career at Oxford, to join
the first British expedition that had come out to Portugal nearly five
years ago.
"I am sorry for her, upon my soul I am. She would make so fine a woman
in proper hands! I wonder if some remedy cannot be found against the
effects of her father's folly--his forgetfulness of what is due to
maiden delicacy and the privacies of domestic life!"
L'Isle was still meditating on this interesting subject when he
dismounted at his own quarters, one of the best houses on the _praca_,
or public square of Elvas.
Lady Mabel was right in supposing that family interest had something
to do with putting L'Isle at the head of a regiment when just
twenty-four. Such instances have been common enough in the British
service--and not rare in others, in all ages of the world.
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