personage with whom master may correspond. And as the army post goes
every day to _Coria_, he would hardly send me thither."

"Can it be for the commander-in-chief?" suggested the footman. "That
is farther off still."

"You are but half-right," said Tom, contemptuously; "for it is not so
far," and, holding up the letter, he pretended to read the direction:
"'To his excellency, Lieutenant-General Sir Mabel Stewart,
commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in these parts.' If you had
not been blockheads, you might have known it, from the extraordinary
neatness of the rose-colored envelope, with its figured green border."

"I wonder where he got it?" said the footman.

"He brought them out with him from home," said Tom, as if he were in
all his master's secrets, "for his love-letters to the Portuguese
ladies--but never met with any worth writing love-letters to. And,
now, my lads, hinder me no longer, I must ride and run till this be
delivered to my lady, and your mistress, that is to be." He was soon
in the saddle, and when there, rode as if carrying the news, that a
French division, having surprised the dreamy Spaniards in Badajoz, was
already fording the Cayo, without meeting even Goring's handful of
dragoons, to check its advance.

L'Isle now hastened to the regimental mess, and, after dining,
loitered there longer than usual, with a convivial set, until it was
late enough to visit Lady Mabel.

He found her alone, in her drawing-room; her father being still at