_L'Ec._ Hay, I protest, your ladyship must excuse me there; a man has so much the appearance of boasting, when he becomes the reporter of his own achievements; I beg leave to refer your ladyship to the gazettes, though I confess the gazettes do but afford a soup-maigre, whip-syllabub sort of narrative, accurate enough, perhaps in the main, but plaguily incommunicative of particulars: for instance, in the recent affair at Nordlingen, I can defy you to find any mention in the gazette, that the chevalier Florian charged through a whole regiment of the enemy's grenadiers, drawn up in a hollow square, that Phillipe L'Eclair, singly followed the chevalier, and rode over all those his master had not time to decapitate, how a masked battery suddenly opened with twelve pieces of heavy ordnance, firing red-hot balls; how the chevalier's horse reared; how L'Eclair's neighed; but how both officer and private, neither a whit discouraged at this dilemma, galloped their chargers gracefully up to the flaming mouth of the danger; cleared a chevaux de frise of fifteen feet at a flying leap; then dismounting; carried the battery by a coup de main; spiked the guns; muzzled the gunners with their own linstocks; and, finally compelled the principal engineer to turn cook, and grill a calf's head at his own furnace, for the dinner of his conquerors! Now this affair which had no small influence in determining the fortune of the day, with many parallel traits, our gazetteers have unaccountably neglected to publish. My memory, perhaps, might remedy their deficiencies to any curious ear, but alas! an insurmountable modesty renders the task so painful, that I cast myself upon your ladyship's compassion, and beseech you to forbear from further inquiry. _Ger._ Ha! ha! your sensitive delicacy shall be respected L'Eclair; Rosabelle, be it your care to make the defender of his country welcome--at midnight then.--Oh! hasten on your flight, dark-wing'd hours! through your close shadows once disclose my Florian, then if ye list, be motionless, and still retard the day. [_Exit._ _L'Ec._ There, you hear young woman!--you are to make the defender of his country welcome. _Ros._ I'll do my best towards your pleasure,--what service can I lend you first. _L'Ec._ Dress my wounds. _Ros._ Wounds! gramercy! I never should have guessed you had any. _L'Ec._ Deep, dangerous, desperate,--here! (_affectedly pressing his heart_) here, Rosabelle! here's the malady; 'tis an old hurt, I took it 'ere I went on my campaign; time and absence had clapped an awkward sort of plaster on't; but now--oh! those eyes!--the wound breaks out afresh;--must I expire?--Rosabelle! prithee, be my surgeon. _Ros._ I have not the skill to prescribe, but I could administer a remedy by directions; what salve will you try first. _L'Ec._ Lip-salve, you gipsy! (_Kisses her furiously._) _Ros._ Now, shame upon your manners, master soldier, was this a trick taught you by the wars?