ights, when she thinks I am asleep, I hear her. Have you seen that she
has grown white and thin? I think that my father is very unhappy about
her."

"In an hour of mercy may the merciful One remember Dare Grant! I will
pray for his peace as long as I live. If he had left Juan--if he had
come back alone--I think indeed I should have hated him."

"That was also the opinion of Antonia--she would never have loved him
the same. I am sure she would not have married him."

"My good Antonia! Go bring her to me, Isabel. I want to comfort her. She
has been so patient with me. I have felt it--felt it every minute; and
I have been stupid and selfish, and have forgotten that she too was
suffering."

The next day it was found impossible to move. The majority of the
women had husbands with the army. They had left their wives, to secure
everlasting freedom for their children; but, even if Houston was
victorious, they might be wounded and need their help. To be near them
in any case was the one thing about which they were positive.

"We will not move another inch," said a brave little Massachusetts
woman, who had been the natural leader of this domestic Exodus; "we
will rest ourselves a little here, and if the Mexicans want some
extraordinary fighting they can have it; especially, if they come
meddling with us or our children. My husband told me just to get out of
reach of shot and shell and wait there till we heard of the victory, and
I am for doing THAT, and no other thing."

Nearly two hundred women, bent upon their own way, are not to be taken
any other way; and the few old men who had been sent to guide the party,
and shoot what game was necessary for their support, surrendered at once
to this feminine mutiny. Besides, the condition of the boys and girls
between seven and fourteen was really a deplorable one. They were too
old to be cared for as infants, and they had been obliged, with the
strength of children, to accomplish the labor of men and women. Many
were crippled in their feet, others were continually on the point of
swooning.

It was now the 20th of April. The Senora and her daughters had been six
weeks with the American army, exposed to all the privations which such
a life entailed. But the most obvious of these privations were, perhaps,
those which were most easily borne. Women endure great calamities better
than the little annoyances affecting those wants which are part and
parcel of their sex or their caste. It