inds of oaths
and expressions.

The scene ended by one of the young ladies offering the major a glass of
water, which he drank off, effectually clearing the avenue of his
throat.

"Will you try another, Senor Coronel?" asked Dona Joaquina, with a
smile.

"No, ma'am, thank you," replied the major, and then a sort of internal
subterraneous curse could be heard in his throat.

The conversation continued in English, and we were highly amused at the
attempts of our new acquaintances to express themselves in that
language.

After failing, on one occasion, to make herself understood, Guadalupe
said, with some vexation in her manner:

"We wish brother was home come; brother speak ver better Englis."

"Where is he?" I inquired.

"In the ceety--Vera Cruz."

"Ha! and when did you expect him?"

"Thees day--to-night--he home come."

"Yes," added the Senora Joaquina, in Spanish: "he went to the city to
spend a few days with a friend; but he was to return to-day, and we are
looking for him to arrive in the evening."

"But how is he to get out?" cried the major, in his coarse, rough
manner.

"How?--why, Senor?" asked the ladies in a breath, turning deadly pale.

"Why, he can't pass the pickets, ma'am," answered the major.

"Explain, Captain; explain!" said the ladies, appealing to me with looks
of anxiety.

I saw that concealment would be idle. The major had fired the train.

"It gives me pain, ladies," said I, speaking in Spanish, "to inform you
that you must be disappointed. I fear the return of your brother to-day
is impossible."

"But why, Captain?--why?"

"Our lines are completely around Vera Cruz, and all intercourse to and
from the city is at an end."

Had a shell fallen into Don Cosme's drawing-room it could not have
caused a greater change in the feelings of its inmates. Knowing nothing
of military life, they had no idea that our presence there had drawn an
impassable barrier between them and a much-loved member of their family.
In a seclusion almost hermetical they knew that a war existed between
their country and the United States; but that was far away upon the Rio
Grande. They had heard, moreover, that our fleet lay off Vera Cruz, and
the pealing of the distant thunder of San Juan had from time to time
reached their ears; but they had not dreamed, on seeing us, that the
city was invested by land. The truth was now clear; and the anguish of
the mother and daughters became afflicting when we