"Better one daughter than a thousand sons," said Lady Mabel, "for they would make a cumbersome family."
"You are a cumbersome baggage yourself," said Lord Strathern. "Just see the endless litter of flowers, leaves, yea, branches of trees, with which you cumber the house. We will have to apply to the quartermaster for the use of a returning supply-train to convey your botanical treasures to Lisbon, and we will have to charter a vessel there to carry them home. Dr. Graham's study will not contain all you collect for him. You must have exhausted the neighborhood."
"In one sense I am afraid we have. Colonel L'Isle tells me that we have explored almost every part of the country immediately around Elvas."
"I am sorry we are tied down to this one spot," said her father. "As you have never been from home before, I would wish you to see as much as possible of this country. But I must stick close to the brigade, at hand for orders at any moment."
"I must be content," said Lady Mabel. "And, after all, it is better to see one place thoroughly, than to take a hasty glance at a dozen in the style of common-place travelers."
"I confess I am but a common-place traveler," said Mrs. Shortridge, "and would like to see a new place every day; though I have, I own, found more variety and amusement in exploring the neighborhood than I expected."
"You will shortly have an opportunity, Mrs. Shortridge," said L'Isle, "of visiting a very striking place by merely accompanying the commissary. He thinks of going to Evora to purchase cattle and grain for the troops, and Evora is well worth seeing, as well as the country you pass through in going thither."
"Ah! I would like the jaunt very much. But I did not know that the commissary was going thither."
"He is going, and you might accompany him," said L'Isle. "You could not indeed make the journey in your coach if you had one, for off this high road, from Lisbon to Madrid, there is scarcely a carriage-road in the country. But you are now quite at home, on the back of your sure-footed mule."
The truth was, L'Isle had himself suggested to the commissary that the country south of Evora was rich and productive, and that prices had not been raised there by the vicinity of the troops, and the demands of their market. At the same time he gave Shortridge to understand that he wished to get up a party to visit Evora, and Lady Mabel must be included in it.