ember of her
family. So! She is pleased, we embrace, the volantes are commanded, all
goes smoothly. I demand permission to take my parrot to the convent; it
is, to my surprise, accorded; I know she thought those savage sisters
would kill him the first time he uttered his noble and inspiring words.

The night comes, the hour of the departure. To accompany us goes my good
Don Miguel, the dear old man of whom I have told you, whom I revere as
my grandfather. My heart yearns to tell him all, to cast myself on his
venerable bosom and cry, "Come with me; take me yourself to my brother;
share with us the perils and glories of the tented field!" But no! he
is old, this dear friend; his hair is the snow, his step is feeble.
Hardships such as Rita must now endure would end his feeble life. I
speak no word; a marble smile is all I wear, though my heart is rent
with anguish. The carriages are at the door. Concepcion would have me
ride in the first, that she may have her eyes on me at each instant. She
suspects nothing, no; it is merely the base and suspicious nature which
reveals itself at every occasion. I refuse, I prodigate expressions of
my humility, of my determination to take the second place, leaving the
first to her; briefly, I take the second volante, Manuela springing to
my side. After some discontent, appeased by dear Don Miguel, who is
veritably an angel, and wants but death to transport him among the
saints, Concepcion mounts in the first volante. I have seen that
Pasquale is on the box of mine; I possess my soul, I lean back and count
the beats of my fevered pulse, as we ascend the steep road, winding
among hills and forests. The convent is at the top of a long, long hill,
very steep and rugged; the horses pant and strain; humanity demands that
they slacken their pace, that the carriages are slowly, slowly, drawn up
the rugged track. The night descends, I have told you, swiftly in our
southern climate; already it is dark. On either side of the road are
tall shrouded forms, which Manuela takes for sentinels, for Spanish
soldiers drawn up to watch, perhaps to arrest us. I laugh; I see they
are the aloes only, planted here in rows along the road. Presently, at a
turn of the road, a light! a fire burning by the roadside, and soldiers
running, real ones this time, to the horses' heads. "_Alerta! quien
va?_" It is the Spanish challenge, Marguerite; it is a piquette of the
Gringos, of the hated Spaniards. They peer into the c