utside street. Besides Don Ignacio and his daughter, but one other
individual occupied the house--their only servant, a young girl of
Mexican nativity and mixed blood, half white, half Indian--in short, a
_mestiza_. The straitened circumstances of the exile forbade a more
expensive establishment. Still, the insignia within were not those of
pinched poverty. The sitting-room, if small, was tastefully furnished,
while, among other chattels speaking of refinement, were several volumes
of books, a harp and a guitar, with accompaniment of sheets of music.
The strings of these instruments Luisa Valverde knew how to touch with
the skill of a professional, both being common in her own country.

On that night, when the election of the filibustering officers was being
held in Poydras Street, her father, alone with her in the same
sitting-room, asked her to play the harp to the accompaniment of a song.
Seating herself to the instrument, she obeyed, singing one of those
_romanzas_ in which the language of Cervantes is so rich. It was, in
fact, the old song "El Travador," from which has been filched the music
set to Mrs Norton's beautiful lay, "Love not." But on this night the
spirit of the Mexican senorita was not with her song. Soon as it was
finished, and her father had become otherwise engaged, she stepped out
of the room, and, standing in the piazza, glanced through the trellised
lattice-work that screened it from the street. She evidently expected
some one to come that way. And as her father had invited Florence
Kearney to supper, and she knew of it, it would look as if he were the
expected one.

If so, she was disappointed for a time, though a visitor made his
appearance. The door bell, pulled from the outside, soon after summoned
Pepita, the Mexican servant, to the front, and presently a heavy
footfall on the wooden steps of the porch, told of a man stepping upon
the piazza.

Meanwhile the young lady had returned within the room; but the night
being warm, the hinged casement stood ajar, and she could see through it
the man thus entering. An air of disappointment, almost chagrin, came
over her countenance, as the moonlight disclosed to her view the dark
visage of Carlos Santander.

"_Pasa V. adientro, Senor Don Carlos_," said her father also recognising
their visitor through the casement; and in a moment after the Creole
stepped into the room, Pepita placing a chair for him.

"Though," continued Don Ignacio, "