"
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.
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