use, and protesting against their Spanish neighbors being brought so
near to them.

"If they are so delighted at the powers of this little thing," said
L'Isle, "what would they think of the glass Lord Wellington had put up
in this tower during the siege of Badajoz?"

"Were its powers so great?" Mrs. Shortridge asked.

"Wonderful, according to rumor," answered L'Isle, "But I never had
time to come from the trenches to prove them. It is said to have
brought Badajoz so near, that you saw how the French soldiers made
their soup, and even smell the garlic they put into it. Once, when my
Lord saw Philipon leaning against the parapet of the castle, sneering
at the besieger's clumsy approaches, he so far forgot himself, as to
call for his holsters, that he might pistol the contemptuous Frenchmen
on the spot."

"Did he, indeed?" exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge; then laughing at herself
for being quizzed for the moment, begged L'Isle to tell this to the
Portuguese ladies, and see if they would not believe it.

Meanwhile, Lady Mabel was gazing thoughtfully over the winding valley,
which running toward them from the East, turned abruptly to the South,
indicating the course of the Guadiana, and on the wide plains of
Estremadura _baja_, or the lower, to the blue sierras that walled it
round. "This, then, is Spain," said she; "the land I have read of,
dreamed of, and for the last four years, thought of more even than of
my own."