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of different countries are not, like their coins, exchangeable one for another."

      "Unfortunately," said L'Isle, laughing, "that exchange is a slow process; and exact equivalents are seldom found."

      "It is too provoking," continued Lady Mabel, "after having been at so much pains to learn French, not to be at liberty to go to France, to show the natives how well I can speak their tongue. True, I have access to their books, which are, perhaps, better than themselves."

      "That is not saying much for their books," said L'Isle contemptuously. "Their literature is much overvalued. Its chief merits are variety and bulk."

      "Do you think so? That is not the opinion I have heard expressed."

      "Very true. The world is full of false opinions and bad taste. But a literature, whose great epic poem is the Henriade, may be abundant but cannot be rich. A language, in which you cannot make verse without the jingle of rhyme, may be clear and copious, but is wanting in melody and force. Take away from French literature Gil Blas and the memoires, and were all the rest lost, its place might be easily filled with something better. With these exceptions, there is little worth doing into English or any other tongue. And after all, Gil Blas is only a renegade Spaniard in a French uniform; and, undoubtedly, it is not genius, but merely their intense vanity and egotism, that enables them to excel in writing their own memoirs. Besides, unlike most other people, their books are as immoral as themselves."

      "Well," said Lady Mabel, looking at him in some surprise, yet half convinced of the truth of what he had been saying. "It must certainly be a great comfort to you to entertain so thorough a contempt and dislike for the people you have to fight against."

      "Perhaps it is," said L'Isle, laughing at her observation and his own warmth. "It may not be in the spirit of Christianity or of chivalry, but it is exceedingly true to our nature, to dislike our enemies, and heartily, too. But to return to our subject. You wish to learn Spanish, and I can provide you a capable and zealous teacher."

      "I am much obliged to you; where is he to be found?"

      "I will bring him here, any day and hour you may appoint."

      "Then I will fix an early hour, and take a lesson every day."

      "The truth is," said L'Isle, hesitating and somewhat confused, "it is very difficult to find a Spaniard who speaks English well enough to teach you his own tongue."

      "But you said just now that would find me such a master."

      "But not a Spaniard. I hear," said L'Isle, putting a bold face on the matter, "that several of my brother officers have been permitted to make themselves useful to you in various capacities. For instance, on looking round this room, I see more than one achievement of Captain Cranfield's, and hear that Major Lumley's skill in music has been called into play. Now I am behind no one in zeal for your service."

      "So you, yourself, are the Spanish master, whom you, yourself, would recommend?"

      "I assure you I do not know where to find another."

      "Your offer is exceedingly tempting," said Lady Mabel, bowing ironically low. "But I am too much in debt already to the gentlemen in his majesty's service. To turn one of his colonels into my Spanish master would be seriously to misemploy his precious time. I would feel that I was robbing my country. Is it not positive treason to aid and abet the king's enemies? Then it is negative treason, to divert from his service any of the king's friends."

      "But you forget that I am an invalid, not yet fit for duty."

      "You are getting more fit for it every day. My invalid tutor would become a sound colonel long before I had made much progress under his tuition."

      "But I would not object to relaxing from my military duties, and prolonging my invalid condition in your service."

      "Let me beg that you do no such thing, but hasten to get so well as to forget your wounds, and the awkward occasion on which you received them."

      "Why," said L'Isle, in some surprise, "what have you heard of that occasion?"

      "Perhaps you, like some other people, do not care to be reminded of your blunders," said Lady Mabel, mischievously.

      "Blunders?" said L'Isle, "I do not see how a soldier can avoid exposing himself occasionally to the risk of being shot, sabred, or bayoneted. What blunder of mine have you heard of?"

      "Merely that on the approach of a French column, you, instead of rejoining the main body, in great alarm hid yourself and your men in a little Spanish village too mean to have a name. The French found you out, and kept you shut up there in great trepidation for five or six hours, while they were cutting away your barricades, beating in the doors, and tearing off the roofs of the houses. Your case was as desperate as that of a rat in a trap; and when your friends came to your relief, they had to knock a great many of the French in the head before they could persuade them to let you slip out. But, by some lucky misunderstanding at headquarters, you were soon after made a lieut. colonel."

      "Do you know," said L'Isle, laughing, "that this is, to me, quite a new version of that little affair? Did you hear whether we did the French any damage, while they beset us so closely?"

      "Nothing was said on that score. So I suppose you did them little harm."

      "It is lucky for me that your informant had not the reporting of this affair at headquarters."

      "It is said that you had that more adroitly done by your own friends."

      "They give me credit at least for good diplomacy," said L'Isle. "Or, at all events, it is a good thing to have a friend at court—that is, at the elbow of the commander-in-chief. And it seems that I have one there. But still you make a great mistake in declining my services as a teacher of the Spanish tongue. I may be a blundering soldier, but have made myself thoroughly master of the languages of the Peninsula, and have a decided aptitude for teaching. Let me begin by warning you against a blunder we English always commit, in trying to speak a tongue not our own, with the mouth half open, and the hands in the pockets. Now, when you address a foreigner in his own tongue, speak with much noise and vociferation, opening your mouth wide and using much action. The ideas you cannot convey in words, you must communicate by gesticulation, the more emphatic the better."

      "What!" said Lady Mabel. "Would you have me go scolding and gesticulating at every foreign fellow I meet with, and become notorious throughout Elvas as the British virago?"

      "There is no danger of that," said L'Isle. "They would only say that you have as much vivacity as a native, and soon begin to understand you."

      "I have made the acquaintance of some ladies of Elvas. As yet our intercourse has been limited to a few formal visits, and a few set phrases mingled with pantomime. But some of them are disposed to be very sociable, and, through their teaching, I hope to be able soon to bear my part in the most sprightly and sentimental conversation. You shall see what an apt scholar I am under the tuition of my own sex."

      "I trust you will be on your guard against cultivating too great an intimacy with these people," said L'Isle. "You do not know what Portuguese and Spanish ladies are."

      "What are they?"

      "A thorough knowledge of them would only satisfy you that they are gross in language, particularly the Spaniards, indelicate in their habits, careless of propriety, lax in morals, and, with all their grace, vivacity, and elegance, very unfit companions for you. In short, the purity of mind, true refinement of manners, and scrupulous propriety of conduct we look for in a lady, are almost unknown among them."

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