vanished ere they were to
meet. Fray Ignatius had convinced himself that his short lease had fully
expired; and when Dr. Worth went armed with the legal process necessary
to resume his rights, he found his enemy had already surrendered them.
The house was empty. Nothing of its old splendor remained. Every one of
its properties had been scattered. The poor Senora walked through the
desolate rooms with a heartache.

"It was precisely in this spot that the sideboard stood, Roberto!--the
sideboard that my cousin Johar presented to me. It came from the City
of Mexico, and there was not another like it. I shall regret it all my
life."

"Maria, my dearest, it might have been worse. The silver which adorned
it is safe. Those r--monks did not find out its hiding-place, and I
bought you a far more beautiful sideboard in New Orleans; the very
newest style, Maria."

"Roberto! Roberto! How happy you make me! To be sure my cousin Johar's
sideboard was already shabby--and to have a sideboard from New Orleans,
that, indeed, is something to talk about!"

"Besides, which, dearest one, I bought new furniture for the parlors,
and for your own apartments; also for Antonia's and Isabel's rooms.
Indeed, Maria, I thought it best to provide afresh for the whole house."

"How wonderful! No wife in San Antonio has a husband so good. I
will never condescend to speak of you when other women talk of their
husbands. New furniture for my whole house! The thing is inconceivably
charming. But when, Roberto, will these things arrive? Is there danger
on the road they are coming? Might not some one take them away? I shall
not be able to sleep until I am sure they are safe."

"I chartered a schooner in New Orleans, and came with them to the Bay of
Espiritu Santo. There I saw them placed upon wagons, and only left them
after the customs had been paid in the interior--sixty miles away. You
may hire servants at once to prepare the rooms: the furniture will be
here in about three days."

"I am the happiest woman in the world, Roberto!" And she really felt
herself to be so. Thoughtful love could have devised nothing more likely
to bridge pleasantly and surely over the transition between the past
and the coming life. Every fresh piece of furniture unpacked was a new
wonder and a new delight. With her satin skirts tucked daintily clear of
soil, and her mantilla wrapped around her head and shoulders, she went
from room to room, interesting herself in eve