rance so terrible to look upon. Mothers with the sickness of hope
deferred, to whom the very shadow of war was a nightmare; fathers
wondering if the boy who had now become companion and part bread-winner,
was about to be thrown into the whirl of barrack life with its manifold
temptations. They had passed that way in their own youth and knew that
only the strong are firm. Stalwart amongst the crowd we recognised
Pedro, our last night's platform acquaintance.

"Why, Pedro," said the colonel--we were standing just a little above the
people--"what brings you here to-day? Surely you have made your offering
to the country and your boy is now at Tarragona?"

"True, colonel," returned this veteran, firm as an oak tree. "My boy has
left me; I saw him off last night and you might have heard the noise
going on up here; half the town was at the station. I have no fears for
him. He knows good from evil and has strong principles. I gave him my
blessing and please Heaven he will return when the years are over. But
my heart aches for these poor women who are weak when their emotions are
in question. So I thought I would come and console them a bit, and tell
them that military discipline after all is a very fine thing--the best
thing that could happen to them if they only do their duty. You agree,
colonel?"

"Of course I do," returned the colonel sharply. "There is no training
like it. It makes men of boys if they have only an inch of wood in them
that will bear carving."

[Illustration: WAITING FOR THE VERDICT.]

We had noticed one pale woman close to the doorway, drooping and
woe-begone. She seemed superior to those about her, and over her head,
half draping her face, was the graceful mantilla. At that moment a youth
appeared, a handsome, manly image of his mother--the resemblance was at
once evident; his thread-bare clothes proving him scantily endowed with
worldly goods. As he advanced a serious expression and hesitating
manner betrayed his fate. No need to ask the question, and with a cry
that was half sob, wholly despair, the mother threw her arms about her
boy's neck as though life could hold no further ill for her. At such a
moment reticence was thrown to the winds. What to her the lookers-on?
Were they not all fellow-sufferers?

"A sad story," said our colonel, whose eyes glistened. "They were
amongst the most prosperous people in Gerona, when the husband died and
left them almost in poverty. Her eldest son turned scapegr