Cupid's Dart Read Online Free PDF

slain. Albuera, with its dreadful carnage, where Colonel John Colborne's Light Brigade was blinded by a sudden hailstorm, mown down and annihilated by the demon lancers of Poland. Cuidad Rodrigo. Gallant Dan Mackinnan blown up by a mine, and General Robert Crawford of the Light Division buried in the breech where he fell. Colonel Colborne wounded so badly in the shoulder, the gold braid of his epaulette driven so far in his flesh, that he could only bear the ball to be dug out five minutes at a time over a period of months. The terrible dead of the Peninsular battlefields, who lay stripped of their clothes by human scavengers andleft to burn naked in the sun until the vultures swooped down from the sky, and the jackals from the hills.
    Lump might have liked to investigate a kilt, or chase a jackal; but in their absence, he was bored. Not with his surroundings, which offered countless adventurous opportunities for an enterprising hound, but his master was moving along at a snail's pace. Master Andrew could not be blamed for his lack of speed, for he had come home from his travels done to a cow's thumb, which was why Lump trotted meekly at his heels. But Lump was only a canine, albeit an exceptional one, and could not be expected to continue this forbearance indefinitely. Furthermore, he was growing hungry. Helooked around at the bustling crowd.
    Andrew was wakened from his unhappy musings by a sharp tug on the leash wrapped around his wrist. "Fiend seize it!" he growled. But Lump was already off in quest of adventure. Andrew could only stumble along in his wake.
    First Lump inspected the fishing nets spread from one end of the Steine to the other, and caused several promenaders to be tripped up by entangling their feet, and several fisherman to shout most colorfully after him. Then he narrowly avoided collision with a military gentleman in a magnificently laced jacket, decorative yellow boots, and breeches with gold fringe. Persuaded by his master that the fringe was not for eating, he next interfered grievously with a young woman selling gingerbread and apples out of a little basket at her side. Lump especially liked gingerbread. With the basket clenched in his teeth, he led his master a merry chase through the crowd, leaving quite a rumpus in his wake.
    Among that crowd, a particular young lady caught his eye. Not that Lump was a connoisseur of female beauty, though he thought his own mistress was very fine. And not that the young lady was a beauty, for she was taller than was common, and had a generous smattering of freckles across her nose. Nor did Lump care that she looked anxious, or observe the odd circumstance that she appeared to be alone. What intrigued Lump were the tassels dangling from the young lady's reticule.
    Lump was especially fond of tassels. He let go of the basket and leapt forward with a happy bark. The little gingerbread girl, who had been chasing after him, snatched up her basket and sadly depleted wares.
    Of no especial interest to Sarah-Louise, either, were such fashionable diversions as toys and rare china, tea and knickknacks. She peered anxiously around, wondered if perhaps she might go unnoticed among so vast a throng. Sarah-Louise would not be easy to overlook, wearing as she was a straw hat turned up round the front, lined with white satin, a bunch of ribbons on one side; and a walking dress of green striped muslin with long, full sleeves tied up in three places with colored ribbons, and a deep vandyked flounce that also had a ribbon trim.
    If only she could be certain Peregrine had received her note! She twisted her reticule in her hands. And then Sarah-Louise gasped, for she espied not a handsome poetical profile but a singularly unattractive hound with a pale young man in tow. The hound was making straight for her, despite the gentleman’s heroic attempt to hold him in check. In but a trice it would be upon her, its great paws on her shoulders, drooling all over her dress.
    Despite Mr.