Badajoz a considerable time after the departure of the army, and was a
more frequent visitor than ever at the house of the excellent dame who
had so opportunely aided my escape. She was a kind-hearted soul with all
her vindictiveness; and now that the French were no longer riding
rough-shod over the city, spoke of those who were lurking about in
concealment--of whom there were believed to be not a few, with sorrow
and compassion. At length the wound I had received at Lieutenant
Victor's hands was thoroughly healed, and I was thinking of departure,
when the Andalusian dame introduced me in her taciturn, expressive way
to a charming young Frenchwoman, whose husband, a Spaniard, had been
slain during the assault or sack of the city. The intimacy thus begun
soon kindled on my part, into an intense admiration. Coralie was gentle,
artless, confiding as she was beautiful, and moreover--as Jeannette, her
sprightly, black-eyed maid informed me in confidence--extremely rich.
Here, gentlemen, was a combination of charms to which only a heart of
stone could remain insensible, and mine at the time was not only young,
but particularly sensitive and tender, owing in some degree, I daresay,
to the low diet to which I had been so long confined; for nothing, in my
opinion, takes the sense and pluck out of a man so quickly as that. At
all events I soon surrendered at discretion, and was coyly accepted by
the blushing lady. 'There was only one obstacle,' she timidly observed,
'to our happiness. The relatives of her late husband, by law her
guardians, were prejudiced, mercenary wretches, anxious to marry her to
an old hunks of a Spaniard, so that the property of her late husband,
chiefly consisting of precious stones--he had been a lapidary--might not
pass into the hands of foreigners.' I can scarcely believe it now,"
added Mr. Smith, with great heat; "but if I didn't swallow all this
stuff like sack and sugar, I'm a Dutchman! The thought of it, old as I
am, sets my very blood on fire.

"At length," continued Mr. Marmaduke Smith, as soon as he had partially
recovered his equanimity--"at length it was agreed, after all sorts of
schemes had been canvassed and rejected, that the fair widow should be
smuggled out of Badajoz as luggage in a large chest, which Jeannette and
the Andalusian landlady--I forget that woman's name--undertook to have
properly prepared. The marriage ceremony was to be performed by a priest
at a village about twelve Engl