re! do you understand?"

"My Senora, Fray Ignatius--"

"Saints in heaven! But this is intolerable! Go."

Then Rachela closed the door with a clang which echoed through the
house. And say as we will, the malice of the wicked is never quite
futile. It was impossible after this interruption to recall the happy
spirit dismissed by it; and Rachela had the consolation, as she muttered
beside the fire in the Senora's room, this conviction. So that when she
heard the party breaking up half an hour afterwards, she complimented
herself upon her influence.

"Will Jack come and see me soon, and the Senor Doctor?" questioned the
Senora, anxiously, as she held the hand of Luis in parting.

"Jack is on a secret message to General Houston. His return advices will
find us, I trust, in San Antonio. But until we have taken the city, no
American can safely enter it. For this reason, when it was necessary to
give Lopez Navarro certain instructions, I volunteered to bring them.
By the Virgin of Guadalupe! I have had my reward," he said, lifting the
Senora's hand and kissing it.

"But, then, even you are in danger."

"Si! If I am discovered; but, blessed be the hand of God! Luis Alveda
knows where he is going, and how to get there."

"I have heard," said the Senora in a hushed voice, "that there are to be
no prisoners. That is Santa Anna's order."

"I heard it twenty days ago, and am still suffocating over it."

"Ah, Luis, you do not know the man yet! I heard Fray Ignatius say that."

"We know him well; and also what he is capable of"; and Luis plucked his
mustache fiercely, as he bowed a silent farewell to the ladies.

"Holy Maria! How brave he is!" said Isabel, with a flash of pride that
conquered her desire to weep. "How brave he is! Certainly, if he meets
Santa Anna, he will kill him."

They went very quietly up-stairs. The Senora was anticipating the
interview she expected with Rachela, and, perhaps wisely, she isolated
herself in an atmosphere of sullen and haughty silence. She would
accept nothing from her, not even sympathy or flattery; and, in a curt
dismission, managed to make her feel the immeasurable distance between
a high-born lady of the house of Flores, and a poor manola that she had
taken from the streets of Madrid. Rachela knew the Senora was thinking
of this circumstance; the thought was in her voice, and it cowed and
snubbed the woman, her nature being essentially as low as her birth.

As for the Senora, th