I was conversing with a friend the day after, at the door of his tent, when we observed two ladies coming from the city, who made directly towards us; they seemed both young, and when they came near, the elder of the two threw back her mantilla to address us, shewing a remarkably handsome figure, with fine features, but her sallow, sunburnt, and careworn, though still youthful countenance, shewed that in her, "The time for tender thoughts and soft endearments had fled away and gone."
She at once addressed us in that confident heroic manner so characteristic of the high bred Spanish maiden, told us who they were, the last of an ancient and honourable house, and referred to an officer high in rank in our army, who had been quartered there in the days of her prosperity, for the truth of her tale.
Her husband she said was a Spanish officer in a distant part of the kingdom; he might or he might not still be living. But yesterday, she and this her young sister were able to live in affluence and in a handsome house—to day, they knew not where to lay their heads—where to get a change of raiment or a morsel of bread. Her house, she said, was a wreck, and to shew the indignities to which they had been subjected, she pointed to where the blood was still trickling down their necks, caused by the wrenching of their earrings through the flesh, by the hands of worse than savages who would not take the trouble to unclasp them!
For herself, she said, she cared not; but for the agitated, and almost unconscious maiden by her side, whom she had but lately received over from the hands of her conventual instructresses, she was in despair, and knew not what to do; and that in the rapine and ruin which was at that moment desolating the city, she saw no security for her but the seemingly indelicate one she had adopted, of coming to the camp and throwing themselves upon the protection of any British officer who would afford it; and so great, she said, was her faith in our national character, that she knew the appeal would not be made in vain, nor the confidence abused. Nor was it made in vain! nor could it be abused, for she stood by the side of an angel!—A being more transcendantly lovely I had never before seen—one more amiable, I have never yet known!
Fourteen summers had not yet passed over her youthful countenance, which was of a delicate freshness, more English than Spanish—her face though not perhaps rigidly beautiful, was nevertheless so remarkably handsome, and so irresistibly attractive, surmounting a figure cast in nature's fairest mould, that to look at her was to love her—and I did love her; but I never told my love, and in the meantime another, and a more impudent fellow stepped in and won her! but yet I was happy—for in him she found such a one as her loveliness and her misfortunes claimed—a man of honour, and a husband in every way worthy of her!
That a being so young, so lovely, so interesting, just emancipated from the gloom of a convent, unknowing of the world and to the world unknown, should thus have been wrecked on a sea of troubles, and thrown on the mercy of strangers under circumstances so dreadful, so uncontrollable, and not to have sunk to rise no more, must be the wonder of every one. Yet from the moment she was thrown on her own resources, her star was in the ascendant.
Guided by a just sense of rectitude, an innate purity of mind, a singleness of purpose which defied malice, and a soul that soared above circumstances, she became alike the adored of the camp and of the drawing-room, and eventually the admired associate of princes. She yet lives, in the affections of her gallant husband in an elevated situation in life, a pattern to her sex, and the every body's beau ideal of what a wife should be.
My reader will perhaps bear with me on this subject yet a little longer.
Thrown upon each other's acquaintance in a manner so interesting, it is not to be wondered at that she and I conceived a friendship for each other, which has proved as lasting as our lives—a friendship which was cemented by after circumstances so singularly romantic, that imagination may scarcely picture them! The friendship of man is one thing—the friendship of woman another; and those only who have been on the theatre of fierce warfare, and knowing that such a being was on the spot, watching with earnest and unceasing solicitude over his safety, alike with those most dear to her, can fully appreciate the additional value which it gives to one's existence.
About a year after we became acquainted, I remember that our battalion was one day moving down to battle, and had occasion to pass by the lone country-house in which she had been lodged.