palace in the Calle Capuchinas.

And shortly after, two officers in shining uniforms entered the portals
of that same palace, sent up their cards, and were admitted on the
instant. Ah! these were rare times! But rarer still--for it should
only occur once in a man's lifetime--was an hour spent in the little
chapel of San Bernardo.

There is a convent--Santa Catarina--the richest in Mexico; the richest,
perhaps, in the world. There are nuns there--beautiful creatures--who
possess property (some of them being worth a million of dollars); and
yet these children of heaven never look upon the face of man!

About a week after my visit to San Bernardo, I was summoned to the
convent, and permitted--a rare privilege for one of my sex--to enter its
sacred precincts. It was a painful scene. Poor "Mary of Mercy"! How
lovely she looked in her snow-white vestments!--lovelier in her sorrow
than I had ever seen her before. May God pour out the balm of oblivion
into the heart of this erring but repentant angel!

I returned to New Orleans in the latter part of 1848. I was walking one
morning along the Levee, with a fair companion on my arm, when a
well-known voice struck on my ear, exclaiming:

"I'll be dog-goned, Rowl, if it ain't the cap'n!"

I turned, and beheld Raoul and the hunter. They had doffed the
regimentals, and were preparing to "start" on a trapping expedition to
the Rocky Mountains.

I need not describe our mutual pleasure at meeting, which was more than
shared by my wife, who had often made me detail to her the exploits of
my comrades. I inquired for Chane. The Irishman, at the breaking up of
the "war-troops", had entered one of the old regiments, and was at this
time, as Lincoln expressed it, "the first sargint of a kump'ny."

I could not permit my old ranging comrades to depart without a
_souvenir_. My companion drew off a pair of rings, and presented one to
each on the spot. The Frenchman, with the gallantry of a Frenchman,
drew his upon his finger; but Lincoln, after trying to do the same,
declared, with a comical grin, that he couldn't "git the eend of his
wipin' stick inter it." He wrapped it up carefully, however, and
deposited it in his bullet-pouch.

My friends accompanied us to our hotel, where I found them more
appropriate presents than the rings. To Raoul I gave my revolving
pistols, not expecting to have any further use for them myself; and to
the hunter, that which he valued more than