Within the chamber which he occupied Ronald sat late that night, musing on what was to be done, and what course was now to be steered. He saw that it was absolutely necessary that he should proceed instantly to rejoin,—a measure which the healed state of his wound rendered imperative. "The division is retreating," thought he, "and the Count D’Erlon will without doubt push forward immediately and regain possession of Merida, and I must inevitably be taken prisoner. I will join Sir Rowland as he passes through; the troops must pass here _en route_ for Portugal. How dangerous to my own quiet is my acquaintance with Catalina, and how foolishly have I been tampering with her affections and with my own heart! Good heavens! I have acted very wrong in awakening in her a sentiment towards me, which my plighted troth to Alice and my own natural sense of honour forbid me to cherish or return. And Catalina loves me; her blushes, her downcast eyes, and her sweet confusion have betrayed it more than once. ’Tis very agreeable to feel one’s self beloved, and by so fair a girl, for Catalina is very beautiful; but I must fly from her, and break those magic spells which are linking our hearts together. To-morrow—no, the day after, I will leave Merida, and join the division as soon as I hear by what route it is retiring." Louis Lisle, too, the brother of Alice, was now an officer in the same corps, and his bold spirit would instantly lead him to seek vengeance for any false or dishonourable part acted towards his sister. "Poor Louis! he is the first friend I ever had; and how will so delicate a boy, one so tenderly nurtured, endure the many miseries of campaigning here? A single night such as that we spent in the bivouac of La Nava, would unquestionably be his death." Here his cogitations were interrupted by the voice of Evan, who was carousing in the room below with Gomez, (having spent the night together over their cups, although neither understood a word of the other’s language), singing loud and boisterously,— "Keek into the draw-well, My Jo Janet; And there ye’ll see yer bonnie sell, My Jo Janet." a performance which drew many ’vivas!’ from his brother-soldier. Roused from the reverie into which he had fallen, Ronald’s eye fell on the newspaper sent him by Macdonald, and he now took it up, thinking to find something in it to direct the current of his thoughts; and somewhat he found with a vengeance! Better would it have been if he had never thought of it at all. It was an _Edinburgh Journal_, dated several weeks back, and appeared to have passed through the hands of the whole division, it was so worn and frittered. After scanning over the ’Gazette,’ to which he had turned first "with true military instinct," his eye next fell upon one of those pieces of trash styled ’fashionable news,’ It was headed—