Finding himself completely outwitted, and that the fan of a demoiselle of somewhat mature age and rather unattractive appearance had fallen to his lot, Willy Douglas "evacuated Flanders," _i.e._, forsook the ballroom, and bent all his energies to recruiting for the second battalion of the Black Watch, leaving the fair field completely to his more successful rival. But though assigned to Charters by the fashion of the time, and by her own pretty manoeuvre, as a partner for the season, our gay coquette would not yet acknowledge herself conquered; and Charters felt with some anxiety that she was amusing herself with him, and that the time was drawing near when he would have to rejoin his regiment, which was then expecting the route for America, over the fortunes of which the clouds of war were gathering. Besides, Emmy had a thousand little whims and teasing ways about her, all of which it was his daily pleasure, and sometimes his task, to gratify and to soothe; and often they had a quarrel--a real quarrel--for two whole days. These were two centuries to Louis; but then it was of course made up again; and Emmy, like an Empress, gave him her dimpled hand to kiss, reminding him, with a coy smile, that "A lover's quarrel was but love renewed." "True, Emmy; but I would infinitely prefer a love that required no renewal," said Charters, with a sigh. "How tiresome you become! You often make me think of Willy Douglas. Well, and where shall we find this remarkable love you speak of?" "Ah, Emmy, you read it in every eye that turns to yours; it fills the very air you breathe, and sheds a purity and a beauty over everything." "Then you always see beauty here?" "Oh, Emmy, I always see _you_, and you only; but you are still bantering." "Do you know, Captain Charters, that I do not think it polite to tell a woman that she is beautiful?" said Emmy, pretending to pout, while her eyelids drooped, and she played with her fan. "To tell any ordinary woman that she was beautiful, might offend her, if she was sensible; but to tell you so, though you have the sense of a thousand, must be pleasing, because you are conscious of your great beauty, Emmy, and know its fatal power--but alas! too well." "What!" exclaimed Emmy, her eyes flashing with triumph and fun, "I am beautiful, then?" "Too much so for my peace. Beautiful! Oh, Emmy Stuart, you are dangerously so. But you trifle with me cruelly, Emmy. Think how time is gliding away--and a day must come when I shall be no longer here." Her charming eyelids drooped again. "A time--well, but remember there is an Italian poet who says, All time is lost that is not spent in love." Charters gazed at her anxiously, and after a momentary pause, with all his soul in his eyes and on his tongue, he said:--