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332 . FRANK :LESLIE’S NEW YORK JOURNAL. .
before she replied to him. |The elder lady merely| “ Yes !” “Marshall and Trevanian!” answered his lord-
bowed her head, as if in assent. * Which?”
“You must not think of leaving us!” she said.
“You are not in a fit state—indeed you are not—to
travel further! Remain for the night, at least! My
mother, who is absent on important business, I am
sure would wish it, were she here!”
“This lady, then,” exclaimed Clement Foster,
glancing at her companion, “is not your mother?”
“A visitor only,” replied the young mistress of
the house, “who has honored the Chateau Vert by
making it her residence for a few days!” __
The air of profound respect with which this was
"uttered did not escape the notice of our hero, who
secretly wondered what could be the rank and name
of the silent sybilline-looking personage, who con-
tinued to fix her piercing glance upon her visitors
as if she would read their very thoughts. .
The colonel was one of those soldiers who hold
the performance of their duty paramount to every
personal consideration. After gratefully declining
the proffered hospitality, he declared his intention
to proceed at once to head-quarters, and, turning to
his orderly, directed him to assist him to his horse.
The man obeyed reluctantly.
Scarcely had his master risen to his feet, when
the same mortal paleness which had so alarmed his
friends in the first instance reappeared. Nature
for once proved weaker than resolution, and he sank
back upon the sofa. - :
“T fear, Duncan,” he said, addressing the soldier,
‘that, after all, I must intrude upon the courtesy of
these ladies !”” : .
At the name of Duncan, Walter Trevanian started;
and for the first time his eyes and those of the man
met. They instantly recognised each other—for the
orderly was no other than the faithful groom of his
dead brother, whom he had so cruelly treated, and
caused to be dismissed from the family without a
character or a friend. The orderly, who was not in
his regiment, did not appear ut the least disconcerted
at the meeting.
The extraordinary-looking female, who had not
yet spoken a word, approached the wounded man,
and, extending one finger, placed it on his wrist.
“Ts there a surgeon amongst you?” she de-
manded, speaking in excellent English.
Unfortunately there was not. .
“T fear internal hemorrhage has taken. place !””
she continued, without noticing the surprise of the
_officers at her addressing them in their native lan-
‘guage. ‘I possess a styptic which may allay it for
a few hours, but your comrade requires abler assist-
ance than I can offer!”
‘Capt. Marshall and Walter Trevanian exchanged
a few words, whispered, with each other.
' The party, with the exception of the colonel and
his faithful orderly, took. their leave, and resumed
their ride towards Monblanc, the head-quarters of
the army. On their way, Clement Foster appeared
unusually silent: the lively sallies of his friend
Lord Peapod failed to elicit a single smile.
“Tl bet a hundred to fifty,” exclaimed the peer,
“that I name the subject of your thoughts!”
“You forget: I never bet!” observed our hero,
gravely.
“T won't blame you for that!” continued: the
peer; “since I partly guess the cause, and ‘ once
bitten,’ as the saying is, ‘twice shy!’ She is devil-
ish pretty,” he added, “and more like an English
than a French girl!” ° .
The young soldier colored deeply, and muttered
something about the speaker being more than usually
ridiculous ; then attempted, by a very labored argu-
ment, to prove the utter absurdity of his supposition.
‘ Supposition !” repeated his companion. ‘ Wh:
I made no supposition! You must be very far gone
indeed, Clem, to mistake a simple observation for an
accusation! But I am very glad,’’ he added, with
an air of comic gravity, “that you are not taken
with her, since I am half in love with her myself
already, and it would never do for us to be rivals !”
Our hero agreed with him that it woyld be about
the most unpleasant thing that could occur.
“Then I may rely on your assistance?” said. his
tormentor. ae
“ Assistance! Certainly! That is——In heaven’s
name, Peapod, what are you talking of?” demanded
the young soldier, with the air of a man suddenly
startled from some dream. ‘‘ What am I to assist
you in?” : .
‘In obtaining a wife!” replied his lordship, with
affected gravity, ‘I entered the pretty little bird-
cage we have just left quite heart-whole, and left it
over head and ears in love! Clem, what a delight-
ful mistress she would make of Peapod Hall!”
‘And are you really in love with one of the adies
we have just seen?”
“ Which !” repeated his friend, with a grin of
astonishment. ‘Hang me i would not have
called out any man except yourself who had asked
such a question! Why, with the fair-haired blue-
eyed Venus, to be sure! I should as soon think of
inviting my grandfather the bishop to a bull-bait, as
making love to the old woman! What an awful-
looking creature she is! Did you.ever see such
eyes? I felt as I used to do when called up by the
head master at Eton on examination days, when she
turned them on me!”
“ Are you really serious in your admiration and
intentions towards this girl?” demanded. Clement
Foster. - ,
‘‘ As serious as ever I was in my life!” was the
rather equivocal reply of his volatile lordship.
‘The fit will not: last very long!” observed our
hero, with a smile. ‘Do you remember how you
raved about the black-eyed daughter of the governor
of Valladolid; how you nearly quarrelled with Gen.
Ballesteres, because he was too attentive to the
Countess De Trueba, and how very ridiculous you
looked—pardon the word—when it turned out he
was her brother? Then there was Howard’s
daughter, at Madrid, Gomez the banker’s two pretty
irls—if I mistake not, you were desperately smit-
ten with them both, and only escaped the contretemps
of a proposal by the difficulty you experienced in
making up your mind which was to be the future
Lady Peapod! Poor little Inez and ——”
‘* Quarter—quarter !”’ shouted the peer, laughing ;
“‘T surrender at discretion! Were ever a fellow’s
weaknesses and pecadilloes so marshalled against
him? Why you must have kept a ledger, and noted
my proceedings as regularly as a huckster does his
debtors! You have detected my ruse—keep your
secret—I have nothing to offer in exchange for it!”
“Secret!” repeated Clement Foster ; ‘* upon my
honor I have no secret to keep, or you should be the
first person I confided it to! If you ask me whether
T admired the fair, gentle creature whom we have
just left, I answer, frankly, yes—more, perhaps,
than I ever admired any girl in my life at first sight;
but what do I know of her mind, her heart, her dis-
position? She may be engaged to another; ten to
one if she ever bestows a second thought upon either
of us?”
“Upon me, very likely not!” replied his compa-
nion: ‘in fact, few women ever do scem to care a
rush whether they ever see me again ; but with you
the case is widely different. You are one of those
sensitive, quiet, insinuating fellows, who steal into
their hearts! I saw her eyes, timid as those of a
oung fawn, fixed more than once upon you; then
cast down in such delicious confusion when she found
mine observing her; that, in short, say what you
will, I am convinced the impression was mutual !”
This assertion, made half in jest, half seriously,
caused the heart of the young soldier to beat with
an emotion it had never experienced before—and yet
he was very far from suspecting himself to be in
love—love at first sight had ever appeared to him
ridiculous; the truth was, without being despe-
rately smitten, he had received one of those impres-
sions which, like drawings made with a hard pencil,
are exceedingly fine and delicate, but very difficult
torub out, and are easily fixed for ever.
. So earnestly had the speakers been engaged in
the above conversation, that Marshall and Walter
Trevanian had put their horses’ mettle to the proof
and gallopped with great speed towards the village :
not with the intention, as our readers may suppose,
of sending earlier assistance to Colonel Harrington
—whose death one at least of the worthies ardently
desired—but with the intention, if possible, of pro-
curing billets on the Chateau Vert, where they had
determined at every hazard to instal themselves.
Walter, from a violent passion he had conceived for
the fair girl, whose loveliness had excited his un-
holy desires, and his companion from the wish to
mortify and annoy Clement Foster, whom he hated.
Our hero’s first care on reaching Monblanc was
to despatch a surgeon to the wounded officer 3 that
done, he repaired with his companion to the office of
the quartermaster-general, to receive the billet for
his quarters. As they rode up, his two enemies
passed him with a supercilious smile. :
“They have been up to some precious Piece of
rascality !”’ observed Lord Peapod ; “ Marshall sel-
dom grins unless at mischief!” :
Our hero felt a sudden sickening sensation creep
over him.
“Where have you quartered the two officers who
this instant left ?” he demanded of the official who
was busily writing at the desk. . ‘
‘ Their names ?” replied the scribe.
ship. \ 1
Chateau Vert—friends of the proprietors !’’
_ Whew !” whistled the peer; “I wish them joy
of their inmates ! Nay, never look so discouraged !”
he whispered to his friend, whose countenance be-
trayed how deeply. the intelligence had annoyed
him ; ‘devils as they are, they would never dare to
forget the respect due to two unprotected women
of their station and respectability !” :
The clerk handed them their billets; Clement re-
ceived his mechanically.
' “Sorry I can’t do better for you, gentlemen—but
the place is so full, we cannot find quarters. Gen.
Hall has been compelled to put up with a single
room in an auberge. A quiet farm-house,” added
the man, “at the end of the first village, and close
to the Chateau Vert ; two troops of your regiment
already quartered in the neighborhood ?””
depression, the exact cause of which it would have
puzzled him to account for: badly as he judged of
Walter Trevanian and his old persecutor, Marshall,
he was far from supposing them capable of anything
more than a coarse, insulting gallantry. Even that
thought was painful enough.
As they quitted the village, they met their :ser-
vants with the baggage-horses, and set forward at
once to the quarters assigned them. -
: ae
CHAPTER XLIX. ,
Rumor is painted full of tongues, I wis, Ly
And they do know her well who thus depict her:
She is the sister unto battling echo—
Their common parentage is empty sound. :
- OLD Pray.
Tue ladies of the Chateau Vert were in the draw-
ing-room, ministering with womanly compassion to
their wounded guest, when Walter Trevanian and
his companion entered the apartment unannounced,
displaying by the insolence of their manners the
coarseness of their real natures.. At first they were
mistaken for regimental surgeons, and their brus-
querie was pardoned in consideration of the urgency
of the motive which brought them. ,
“Surgeons be hanged, old lady!” replied Mar-
shall; “ we are two officers of the allied army, who
are billeted here! Gentlemen!” he added; “no
better blood in England! - So let us see our apart-
ments, and Stay ! we shall do very well here!
What do you say, Walter?” .
. His friend nodded assent. He had not yet spoken,
but stood with his eyes fixed in a libertine. glance
upon the trembling girl, who had retreated to the
sofa of the colonel, as if for protection.
If the speaker’s intentions were to intimidate the
singular-looking personage whom he took for the
mistress of the house by his blustering air, he was
completely mistaken. “She cooly observed that it
would be time enough to order his apartments when
she knew by what authority he intruded in the man-
sion. : : ‘
Marshall, perfectly unabashed by her manner,
produced his billet. The lady read it over with
great deliberation, and then rang the bell. It was
answered by one of the peasants who appeared at
the window. » -
“Conduct these English officers,” she said, * to
my apartments, and serve them with such provisions
and wine as the place affords. I shall remain for
the night in that of mademoiselle. In the morning
I shall write to the commander of the allied armics,
requesting that this intrusion may not be repeated !”’
At the mention of her intention of. writing to the
Duke, the young man burst into a vulgar laugh.
The joke appeared an excellent one. .
‘Follow that person, gentlemen !” continued the
speaker, without betraying the least anger or emo-
tion at their impertinence ; “your wants will be
attended to!”
“You will surely grace the hospitality you have
£0 courteously offered us with your presence?” ob-
served Walter Trevanian.. “ Wine and the daintiest
fare on earth are insipid without a woman's pre-
sence! Marshall,”.he added, ’* give the old lady
your arm, whilst I offer mine to this fair creature,
whose eyes might lure a saint from heaven—whose
cheeks rival the morning’s blush!” :
‘With these words, which the speaker no doubt
intended to be complimentary, he advanced towards
the sofa, and would have taken her by the ,hand ;
but she started at his approach, and, darting to her
companion with the swiftness of the frightened
antelope, threw her arms around her and implored
her protection. © - -
Colonel Harrington, unable longer to endure this
scene, rose with difficulty from his recumbent posi-
tion ; every sentiment in his manly nature was out-
raged: life was ebbing fast from him—but, with the
ese words roused the young soldicr from his ©
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