and his wife to beguile Lady Mabel from her father's
protection, under pretence of a short journey to a neighboring town.
Having now rid himself of the innocent commissary, he was leading her
by devious paths far beyond pursuit. Lady Mabel seemed bewitched, and
no longer saw with her own eyes. Was Mrs. Shortridge a simple gull or
something worse? "Perhaps," thought Moodie, "Colonel Bradshawe is
right;" for an eaves-dropping valet had given his scandal wings.

Moodie was not deeply read in romance; but he remembered the
traditionary tale of the young Scotch heiress, who, while a party of
her retainers were escorting her to the house of her guardian, was set
upon by a neighboring chieftain at the head of his clan. Her
followers, concealing the girl under a huge caldron, stood round it
for her defence, and when the last man had fallen the victorious
suitor carried off the girl, and married her for her lands. This, too,
was a plain case of abducting an heiress, not indeed by violence, but
with consummate art. Setting aside the rare attractions of the lady,
in Moodie's estimation the prize was immense. L'Isle, with all his
lofty airs, was but a commoner, with perhaps no fortune but his sword,
a mere adventurer, and Lord Strathern's broad acres were an
irresistible temptation; though, in truth, this coveted domain counted
thousands of acres of sheep-walk to the hundreds of plough land.

Having made this matter clear to his own mind, Moodie cursed in his
heart Lord Strathern's fatuity and the facile disposition Lady Mabel
had so unexpectedly betrayed. But, though sorely troubled, he was not
a man to despair. He resolved to watch L'Isle closely, and to rack his
own invention for some way to foil his schemes, while taking care not
to betray the least suspicion of them.

Meanwhile, Lady Mabel, as she could not herself visit Algarve, was
extracting from L'Isle a full account of that delightful region. And
he described well the picturesque and lofty mountains that cut off its
narrow strip of maritime territory from the rest of Portugal; its
tropical vegetation and its animal life, its perpetual summer,
tempered alternately by the ocean and the mountain breeze. When he
mentioned any fact which Lady Mabel thought might liken this region to
Africa in Moodie's imagination, she would turn and repeat it for his
benefit. Thus, the wolves and the wild boars abounding in the
mountains, became to him nameless monsters infesting the countr