"Do you know," said L'Isle, laughing, "that this is, to me, quite a new version of that little affair? Did you hear whether we did the French any damage, while they beset us so closely?"
"Nothing was said on that score. So I suppose you did them little harm."
"It is lucky for me that your informant had not the reporting of this affair at headquarters."
"It is said that you had that more adroitly done by your own friends."
"They give me credit at least for good diplomacy," said L'Isle. "Or, at all events, it is a good thing to have a friend at court—that is, at the elbow of the commander-in-chief. And it seems that I have one there. But still you make a great mistake in declining my services as a teacher of the Spanish tongue. I may be a blundering soldier, but have made myself thoroughly master of the languages of the Peninsula, and have a decided aptitude for teaching. Let me begin by warning you against a blunder we English always commit, in trying to speak a tongue not our own, with the mouth half open, and the hands in the pockets. Now, when you address a foreigner in his own tongue, speak with much noise and vociferation, opening your mouth wide and using much action. The ideas you cannot convey in words, you must communicate by gesticulation, the more emphatic the better."
"What!" said Lady Mabel. "Would you have me go scolding and gesticulating at every foreign fellow I meet with, and become notorious throughout Elvas as the British virago?"
"There is no danger of that," said L'Isle. "They would only say that you have as much vivacity as a native, and soon begin to understand you."
"I have made the acquaintance of some ladies of Elvas. As yet our intercourse has been limited to a few formal visits, and a few set phrases mingled with pantomime. But some of them are disposed to be very sociable, and, through their teaching, I hope to be able soon to bear my part in the most sprightly and sentimental conversation. You shall see what an apt scholar I am under the tuition of my own sex."
"I trust you will be on your guard against cultivating too great an intimacy with these people," said L'Isle. "You do not know what Portuguese and Spanish ladies are."
"What are they?"