proaching, he delayed the march until men had been sent back to bring
them into safety.

During these days of grief and privation Isabel's nature grew to its
finest proportions. Her patient efforts to arouse her mother, and her
cheerfulness under the loss of all comforts, were delightful. Besides
which, she had an inexhaustible fund of sympathy for the babies. She was
never without one in her arms. Three mothers, who had died on the road,
left their children to her care. And it was wonderful and pitiful to
see the delicately nurtured girl, making all kinds of efforts to secure
little necessaries for the children she had elected to care for.

"The Holy Mother helps me," she said to, Antonia. "She makes the poor
little ones good, and I am not very tired."

At San Felipe they were joined by nearly one hundred men, who also
brought word that a fine company were advancing to their aid from
Mississippi, under General Quitman; and that two large cannon, sent by
the people of Cincinnati, were within a few miles. And thus hoping and
fearing, hungry and weary to the death, they reached, on the 16th of
April, after a march of eighteen miles, a place called McArley's. They
had come over a boggy prairie under a cold rain, and were depressed
beyond expression. But there was a little shelter here for the women and
children to sleep under. The men camped in the open. They had not a tent
in their possession.

About ten o'clock that night, Doctor Worth was sitting with his wife and
children and Antonia in one corner of a room in a deserted cabin. He had
the Senora's wasted hand in his own, and was talking to her. She sat
in apathetic silence. It was impossible to tell whether she heard or
understood him.

"I wonder where Isabel is," said Antonia; and with the words the girl
entered the room. She had in her arms a little lad of four years old,
suffering the tortures of croup.

"Mi madre," she cried, "you know how to save him! He is dying! Save him!
Listen to me! The Holy Mother says so"; and she laid the child on her
knee.

A change like a flash of light passed over the Senora's face. "The poor
little one!" Her motherly instincts crushed down everything else. In the
child's agony she forgot her own grief. With glad hearts the doctor and
Antonia encouraged her in her good work, and when at length the sufferer
had been relieved and was sleeping against her breast, the Senora had
wept. The stone from her heart had been rolled away by