"Very true, old Wisdom. How comes it that you are always in the right?
Let us push on now, and in an hour," she exclaims, stepping into the
coach, "I will see my father, for the first time since I was
fourteen."

The coach moves on, but too slowly for her. Leaning out of the window,
and surveying the road, she calls out gaily, "Our way lies down hill,
Moodie, and they tell me that mules are so sure-footed that they never
stumble. Pray buy or borrow that long goad from the young gentleman in
the sheep-skin jacket. By skillful use of it you might mend our pace,
and bring us sooner to Elvas."

We will leave this impatient lady to hasten on to Elvas, whether
expedited or not by the use of the goad, to inquire the occasion of
her journey thither.

For five years the peninsula has been one battlefield, and the present
has been one of unceasing activity to the British troops. Beginning
the year by suddenly crossing the frontier and investing Ciudad
Rodrigo, they had taken it by storm in January, while the French were
preparing to relieve it. Equally unexpectedly crossing the Tagus and
the Guadiana, they had sat down before the strong fortress of Badajoz,
and to save a few precious days, in which Soult and Marmont might have
united their hosts to its rescue, they, in April, took it in a bloody
assault, buying immediate possession at the price of more than a
thousand precious lives. No sooner had the disappointed Marshals
withdrawn their armies to less exhausted regions, than the forts of
Almarez were surprised in May, and the direct route of communication
between them cut off. The British army then invaded Spain on the side