is, the city of the
Moors. It lies on the border of Algarve, just like Berwick on the
border of Scotland, only Algarve is a beautiful and fertile country,
which poor Scotland is only to a Scot."

"It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest," growled Moodie in an
undertone. "Have you forgot, my lady, that you are yourself a Scot!"

"A Scot!" said she, deliberately, as if now first considering that
point. "My mother was an Englishwoman. So far, I am not a Scot."

"But your father! Your father, my lady!" Moodie angrily exclaimed. "He
is a true Scot, and knows the worth of old Scotland well."

"He does, indeed," said she; "and has always thought it an excellent
country--to come from; so he marched off at eighteen, and has seldom
been back there since."

"So we are on the borders of Africa!" exclaimed Moodie, speaking to
himself aloud.

"Why, do you not see Moodie, that the people grow darker, each day, as
we travel on?"

"The innkeeper at Evora is dark enough," said he, that truth flashing
on him; "but the farmer and his girls are browner still by many a
shade."

"You will think them fair," said Lady Mabel, "when you have traveled
far enough onward," and, leaving him confused and alarmed, she
cantered on to join Mrs. Shortridge.

Now Moodie was a shrewd man, perhaps a little too shrewd, with an eye
open to human depravity; he was learned, too, in his way; many a heavy
tome of Scotch controversial divinity had been thumbed by him as
carefully as his Bible; but he never dwelt on any thing he found there
not sustaining his preconceived notions. He involuntarily slighted
those parts even of Scripture that he could not wrest to his purpose.
Many an historical and traditionary fact, too, floated loosely on his
mind; but his geographical education had been sadly neglected. A
topographical knowledge of half a dozen shires, a general notion of
the shape of old Scotland, and a hazy outline of the sister kingdom,
made up all he had attained to. Had you laid before him a chart of the
sea coast of Bohemia, first discovered by our great dramatist, it
would not have startled him in the least, and he was ready to look for
Africa at any point of the compass.

He now saw clearly that this journey was part of a plot. L'Isle had
first won the confidence of father and daughter; then availing himself
of her love for botany, had habituated her to his presence and
protection on short excursions around Elvas; he had used the
commissary