"I will ask the commissary to-night when he is going," said Mrs. Shortridge; "and to take me with him, if he can."
Lady Mabel had listened with silent interest so far; but here she broke in upon their conference, just as L'Isle desired.
"Why, Mrs. Shortridge," she exclaimed, with a well-feigned air of one deeply wronged, "do you mean to desert me? After partaking of my pleasant excursions and botanical instructions (but I find you a very dull scholar), do you mean to go traveling about, in search of adventures and rare sights, without even asking me to be of the party?—I, who am afflicted with a mania for traveling which can only be cured by being gratified? But such is woman's friendship."
"My dear Lady Mabel, how do you know that my lord would trust you so far under my care?
"So far!" said Lady Mabel, scornfully. "Did I not come from Scotland hither, braving the perils of the sea and of the wilderness, the stormy Bay of Biscay, and the desert of Alemtejo, teeming with robbers and wild beasts? With no guardian but old Moodie, whose chief merit is that of being a suspicious old Scot, with the fidelity and snappishness of a terrier."
"I am surprised now that I sent for you," said Lord Strathern, "considering the difficulties in the way of your coming. But you are here, and I thank God for it. But you would find it a long, rough ride to Evora, and the weather grows hotter every day."
"Rough roads are nothing to us who travel on horseback," Lady Mabel said, with the air of a cavalier; "and as for the distance, it is not much over a morning's ride. Colonel L'Isle, could not you ride there in a morning?"
"With relays of good horses, and good luck to my neck," said L'Isle, with a laugh. "It is about fifty miles; but one need not go the whole way in one day."
"Of course not," she answered. "We will not ride post, but take our ease, and see the country at our leisure."
"I see you intend going, ma belle," said Lord Strathern; "so I may as well give my consent with a good grace. But is the commissary able and willing to take charge of more than one lady, Mrs. Shortridge, who has a will of her own? I trust, too, L'Isle, that after giving these ladies a taste for rambling, you do not mean to desert them now. They may need your escort. Small parties are never safe traveling about this country. Our friends just hereabouts, especially, (I am sorry to say it of them), are apt to fall in love with other men's goods, and have a strong throat-cutting propensity."