han he
could bear.

At this moment Mrs. Carlton entered: he held out his hand, and drawing
her to his side, said, in a deep, tender tone:

"She is mine now, sister; thank God, that at last I have won her, and
pray with me that she may be spared to us both."

Fervently she pressed his hand, and a tear rolled down and dropped
upon it, as she bent down to kiss the sufferer. Gently he put her
back.

"She is wearied, and just fallen asleep; do not wake her."

He carefully depressed his arm that she might rest more easily. Mrs.
Carlton seated herself beside her brother, and whispered:

"You will not go to-morrow, Frank?"

"No, no; I will not leave her a moment. Ellen, does she seem very much
thinner since leaving home? I know she is very pale."

"Yes, Frank; she is fearfully changed within the last week."

"Oh, Ellen! if she should be taken from me;" and closer he drew his
arm, as though fearing some unseen danger.

"We must look to Heaven for her restoration, and God is good,"
answered his sister, turning away to conceal her tears.

CHAPTER XXVII.

"Ah! whence yon glare
That fires the arch of heaven?--that dark red smoke
Blotting the silver moon?...
Hark to that roar whose swift and deafening peals,
In countless echoes, through the mountains ring,
Startling pale midnight on her starry throne!

* * * * *

Loud and more loud, the discord grows,
Till pale Death shuts the scene,
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws
His cold and bloody shroud."

SHELLEY.

The 6th of March rose dark and lowering, and all nature wore an aspect
meet for the horrors which that day chronicled in the page of
history. Toward noon the dense leaden cloud floated off, as though
the uncertainty which veiled the future had suddenly been lifted--the
crisis had come. Santa Anna and his bloodthirsty horde, rendered more
savage by the recollection of the 11th December, poured out the vial
of their wrath on the doomed town. Oh! San Antonio, thou art too
beautiful for strife and discord to mar thy quiet loveliness. Yet the
fiery breath of desolating war swept rudely o'er thee, and, alas! thou
wast sorely scathed.

A second time the ill-fated fortress was fiercely charged. Long it
withstood the terrible shock, and the overwhelming thousands that so
madly pressed its gray, moldering walls. The sun went down as it were
in a sea of blood, its lurid light, gleaming om