name, Papa. I am afraid you might have him flayed
alive, while the poor fellow deserves nothing but laughter for his
doggerel." And while this doggerel was secretly pressed by her bosom,
she stole a look at L'Isle, and was surprised to see how little galled
he seemed to be by her ridicule.

"What is the burden of Sir Rowland's verses?" she asked, addressing
him.

"Very true!" exclaimed L'Isle; "I had forgotten to read it." And
breaking the seal, he ran his eye hastily over the letter. "I must
leave Elvas at once, and be away some days," he said, with a look of
dissatisfaction.

"Sir Rowland is very fond of sending you on his errands," remarked
Lord Strathern. "And, hitherto you seemed to like the extra work he
gave you."

"I would be gladly excused from it just now," answered L'Isle, and in
spite of himself, his eye wandered toward Lady Mabel. Lord Strathern
did not observe this, but said, jestingly: "I believe you have
contrived to convince Sir Rowland that none of us can do any thing so
well as you can," but there was a little tone of pique in the way this
was said.

"I have made no attempt to do so," L'Isle answered. "But he has given
me some thing to do now, and I must set about it at once." Taking
leave of Lady Mabel, he held a short private conference with his
lordship, and, when he went out to mount his horse, found Colonel
Bradshawe already in the saddle, waiting for him. This annoyed him,
for he instinctively knew Bradshawe's object, and looked to be
ingeniously cross-questioned as to the verses which Lady Mabel had
recited, and then criticised so unsparingly. Unwilling to let
Bradshawe stretch him on the rack for his amusement, L'Isle assumed
the offensive, and at once broached another matter which he had much
at heart.

"I wonder when we will leave Elvas," he exclaimed, abruptly. "If we
stay here much longer, we will be at war with the people around us. I
never knew my lord so negligent of discipline. It evidently grows upon
him."

"The old gentleman," said Bradshawe, carelessly, "certainly holds the
reins with a slack hand."

"He is content with preserving order in Elvas," said L'Isle; "but
turns a deaf ear to almost every complaint the peasantry make against
our people."

"Many of them are lies," said Bradshawe, coolly.

"And many of them are too well founded," answered L'Isle. "You are the
senior officer in the brigade, and a man of no little tact. Could you
not stir my lord up to looking m