“Captain,” replied the other,--and he whispered the title by which he addressed him softly in his gay companion’s ear,--“‘ware love!--Cupid himself would find no welcome on board a vessel called the Flambeau.” “Out with the story!” exclaimed the stranger; “or I’ll break through the procession, and ask it of the sweet girl herself.” “Well,” said the civilian, with a smile, “to keep you clear of the Inquisition for an insult to a fwourite saint like blessed Agatha, I will tell you all I know. Sit down upon this marble pediment, and we can speak without any one hearing us. Marked you the greyheaded commander, dressed in a blue uniform, with two crosses at his breast?” “To be sure I did: the worn-out admiral who bore a candle in the crowd.” “Well, the taper is fitter than the sword for the hand of age to carry; no doubt, many a day since, the old gentleman has been laid up in ordinary.” “He would be anything but flattered could he but overhear our conversation,” continued the companion of the gay stranger. “In ordinary! Not he, faith!--It is barely six months ago since he married the----” “Widow of some gouty general,” exclaimed the other, impatiently. “Pshaw!--no more of him.” “He married,” responded the civilian, “no widow of a gouty general, but Inez de Liomana.” “An antiquated virgin,” said the stranger, with a smile; “of high family, holy life, and on the wrong side of sixty.” “Never did a man guess wider of the mark: she was one of the prettiest girls in the province, and on the right side of seventeen,” observed the civilian. “But what the devil does it interest me,” exclaimed the stranger, “whether an old gentleman exhibits his dotage, by committing matrimony, or any other similar absurdity? I don’t want to know anything about his wife.” “But you wish me to favour you with full particulars touching his lovely daughter.” “His daughter!” said the stranger: “Is yonder peerless beauty indeed that old man’s child?” “His only child. She pays the penalty of an act of dotage, for the old fool’s marriage consigns her to a convent.” “Monstrous!” ejaculated the stranger: “What! bury beauty like her’s within a living grave! By Heaven! I’ll escalade the convent walls myself, and liberate that lovely victim; ay, though I perished by the hands of the Inquisition for the sacrilege! But why, if the old man played the fool, should she, poor girl, be immured for it?”