be
Corsican families in which the dignity of corporal was handed down from
father to son. But, as they really believed the individual in question
to be some infantry corporal, they concluded he was some poor devil
whom the skipper desired to take out of pure charity. If he had been an
officer, they would have been obliged to speak to him and live with
him; but there was no reason why they should put themselves out for a
corporal--who is a person of no consequence unless his detachment is
also at hand, with bayonets fixed, ready to convey a person to a place
to which he would rather not be taken.

"Is your kinsman ever sea-sick?" demanded Miss Nevil sharply.

"Never, mademoiselle, he is as steady as a rock, either on sea or land!"

"Very good then, you can take him," said she.

"You can take him!" echoed the colonel, and they passed on their way.

Toward five o'clock in the evening Captain Mattei came to escort them
on board the schooner. On the jetty, near the captain's gig, they met a
tall young man wearing a blue frock-coat, buttoned up to his chin; his
face was tanned, his eyes were black, brilliant, wide open, his whole
appearance intelligent and frank. His shoulders, well thrown back, and
his little twisted mustache clearly revealed the soldier--for at that
period mustaches were by no means common, and the National Guard had not
carried the habits and appearance of the guard-room into the bosom of
every family.

When the young man saw the colonel he doffed his cap, and thanked him in
excellent language, and without the slightest shyness, for the service
he was rendering him.

"Delighted to be of use to you, my good fellow!" said the colonel, with
a friendly nod, and he stepped into the gig.

"He's not very ceremonious, this Englishman of yours," said the young
man in Italian, and in an undertone, to the captain.

The skipper laid his forefinger under his left eye, and pulled down the
corners of his mouth. To a man acquainted with the language of signs,
this meant that the Englishman understood Italian, and was an oddity
into the bargain. The young man smiled slightly and touched his
forehead, in answer to Mattei's sign, as though to indicate that every
Englishman had a bee in his bonnet. Then he sat down beside them, and
began to look very attentively, though not impertinently, at his pretty
fellow-traveller.

"These French soldiers all have a good appearance," remarked the
colonel in English to his dau