The officer himself sat close by the watch-fire, which shone brightly on his new epaulets and other gay appointments. His plumed bonnet lay beside him on the turf, and his fair curly hair glistened in the flame, which revealed the handsome and delicate but rosy features of a very young man—one perhaps not much above seventeen years of age. He was laughing and conversing with the soldiers near him in that easy manner which at once shows the frankness of the gentleman and soldier, and which is duly appreciated by those in the ranks, although it tends in no way to lessen the respect due to the epaulet. A black pig-skin lay near him, from which he was regaling himself, allowing also some of the soldiers to squeeze the liquor into their wooden canteens. On Ronald Stuart’s approach, the sudden apparition of an officer in the uniform of their own regiment, coming they knew not whence, created no small surprise in the little bivouac; and the sudden murmur and commotion which arose among them, caused the young officer to turn his head and look around him. "Ronald—Ronald Stuart!" he exclaimed in well-known accents, as he sprang lightly from the green turf, his eyes sparkling with surprise and joy; "how have you come so unexpectedly upon us?" "Ah, Louis, my old friend! and you have really joined us, to follow the pipe and the drum?" replied Stuart, grasping his hand, and longing to embrace him as he would have done a brother; but the presence of so many restrained him, and he contented himself with gazing fondly on the face of his early friend, and tracing in his fine features the resemblance he bore to his sister. The expression was the same, but the eyes and hair of Alice Lisle were dark; the eyes of Louis were light blue, and his hair was fair,—of that soft tint between yellow and auburn. His features, of course, possessed not that exquisite feminine delicacy which appeared in the fair face of Alice, but yet the family likeness was striking, and pleasing for Ronald Stuart to contemplate and recognise. "He has her very accent and voice," thought he. "Well, Louis! and how are all at home among the mountains? Does old Benmore keep his head in the mist as usual?" "All were well when I left in January last, and I dare say the red deer and muirfowl keep jubilee in our absence, for sad havock we used to make among them." The soldiers, to allow them the freedom of conversation, respectfully fell back, and clustered round Evan Iverach, who, after he had paid his rustic compliments "to his auld friend Maister Lisle, frae the Inch-house," began to regale his gaping countrymen with an exaggerated narrative of his late adventures in Spain, and many a "Hoigh! Oich! Eigh!" and other Scottish interjections of wonder, he called forth as he proceeded.