angement would make the journey less pleasant to me than I
hoped to find it."

"I thought your object was our safety, not your pleasure," said Lady
Mabel.

"And for my part," said Mrs. Shortridge, "I do not care to travel any
road which requires a regiment to make it safe. I am inquisitive
enough, but my fears would be stronger than my curiosity."

"Well," Lady Mabel said, "I begin to despair of ever gratifying my
longing after a rambling life. It is probably all for the best. I dare
say I would have become a mere vagabond. But I had embraced a wide
field in my contemplated travels: romantic Spain, la belle France,
classic Italy, and that dreamy, misty Faderland. But I suppose that
this war will last always, and for all practical purposes I may as
well roll up the map of Europe."

"Do you seriously imagine that this war will last forever?" L'Isle
asked.

"Why not forever, or, at least, for a long life time? It began before
I was born, and may continue long after I am dead. I have no
recollection of a state of peace, to make me think it the natural
condition of nations."

"We are luckily not limited to our own experience in drawing our
conclusions. Take my word for it, these wars are drawing to a close. I
am only afraid that they will end before I am a Major-General."

"Why! Do you expect them to go on making a series of blunders at
headquarters, like that in the affair of that unlucky Spanish
village?"

"A series of blunders," L'Isle answered, "would be quite in accordance
with the routine at the war-office, at least. So my expectations are
not so unreasonable as you may imagine."

"Then let them blunder on as fast as possible, and make you a
major-general, and a knight of the bath, too, if it please the king.
Many of your family were knighted of old, and Sir Edward L'Isle will
sound well enough until it be merged in the peerage. But mean while
hasten to drive these French out of Spain, as the czar is driving them
out of Russia; make Spain too hot, as Muscovy is too cold for them,
that I may begin my travels at an early day."

L'Isle, out of countenance, made no answer to this sally. He did not
like being laughed at, especially by Lady Mabel.

The rays of the declining sun now touched the tops only of the
luxuriant shrubbery, that overhung this fairy dell. The heat of the
day was passed, and clambering up the steep path to the more level
ground, the party found their servants at hand with the horses, and