one is young,
you understand.... She was a good patriot, you may be sure. Caballeros,
credit me or not, political feeling ran so high in those days that I
do not believe I could have been fascinated by the charms of a woman of
Royalist opinions...."

Murmurs of amused incredulity all round the table interrupted the
General; and while they lasted he stroked his white beard gravely.

"Senores," he protested, "a Royalist was a monster to our overwrought
feelings. I am telling you this in order not to be suspected of the
slightest tenderness towards that old Royalist's daughter. Moreover,
as you know, my affections were engaged elsewhere. But I could not help
noticing her on rare occasions when with the front door open she stood
in the porch.

"You must know that this old Royalist was as crazy as a man can be. His
political misfortunes, his total downfall and ruin, had disordered his
mind. To show his contempt for what we patriots could do, he affected to
laugh at his imprisonment, at the confiscation of his lands, the
burning of his houses, and the misery to which he and his womenfolk were
reduced. This habit of laughing had grown upon him, so that he would
begin to laugh and shout directly he caught sight of any stranger. That
was the form of his madness.

"I, of course, disregarded the noise of that madman with that feeling of
superiority the success of our cause inspired in us Americans. I suppose
I really despised him because he was an old Castilian, a Spaniard born,
and a Royalist. Those were certainly no reasons to scorn a man; but for
centuries Spaniards born had shown their contempt of us Americans, men
as well descended as themselves, simply because we were what they
called colonists. We had been kept in abasement and made to feel our
inferiority in social intercourse. And now it was our turn. It was sale
for us patriots to display the same sentiments; and I being a young
patriot, son of a patriot, despised that old Spaniard, and despising
him I naturally disregarded his abuse, though it was annoying to my
feelings. Others perhaps would not have been so forbearing.

"He would begin with a great yell--'I see a patriot. Another of them!'
long before I came abreast of the house. The tone of his senseless
revilings, mingled with bursts of laughter, was sometimes piercingly
shrill and sometimes grave. It was all very mad; but I felt it incumbent
upon my dignity to check my horse to a walk without even glancing
t