within a reasonable distance, for she had been so thoroughly shaken on
the rough paths to and from Evora, that she was not yet up to another
long ride.

"Cranfield has just been talking of Fort la Lippe," said L'Isle,
"which overlooks us from the North. Let us make up a party to visit it
to-morrow. Cranfield can entertain and instruct us by discoursing on
this masterpiece of the Count de Lippe, and unveil the mysteries of
the engineer's art. In the intervals, we can, from that high point,
survey the country around us."

Cranfield eagerly seconded the proposal. Anything that looked like
diversion was welcome to the ladies and the idlers about them, and
Lady Mabel, somewhat mollified, condescended to approve of it.

Accordingly, the next morning she met, by appointment, Mrs.
Shortridge and the three Portuguese ladies at the foot of the long
flight of steps that lead up to the cathedral of Elvas. They were
accompanied by L'Isle, Cranfield, and half a dozen gentlemen more,
including the young surgeon of the ---- regiment, who was always
imagining that Lady Mabel had a cold, headache, or some other little
ailment, that he might have the pleasure of prescribing for it.
Irreverently turning their backs on the old church, without one prayer
to the saints within, or those depicted on its windows of stained
glass, they walked out of town down into the narrow valley lying north
of the city, and crossing the brook which runs at the bottom (the
Portuguese, making a river of it, have christened it the Seto), on the
few stepping-stones which well supply the place of a foot-bridge, they
toiled up the opposite hill, the lower part of which is covered with a
grove of prickly oaks.