"
To fill up the time she now asked L'Isle's opinion of her dress,
seeing him eye it with some surprise. Turning gracefully about and
showing it off to him from different points of view, she told him
that, as a last compliment to her Elvas friends, she had, for once,
adopted their costume.
"Improved upon it, rather," said L'Isle, for she had not closely
followed the local costume where it did not please her. Then running
on, from one lively topic to another, she amused L'Isle so
successfully that he felt it to be an interruption when the footman
came in to say that the coach was ready. After depositing her guitar
in state, on a pile of music, on the front seat, L'Isle at length
found himself beside Lady Mabel in this venerable vehicle, long used
to bear a noble burden, having belonged to a Portuguese Marquis, who
on the first approach of Junot's invading horde, had run off to
Brazil, leaving his coach, his estate, his country, and perhaps his
honor behind him. Slow and dignified, as became its character, was its
progress up the hill of Elvas; for one pair of the team of mules which
had brought it from Lisbon, had returned to their duty in the
quartermaster's department, and their comrades, left to their own
unaided efforts, found the coach almost as hard to handle as a
nine-pounder.
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