The manner of Ruiz was so grave and abstracted that day, that Doña Isabel was inclined to credit him with far more depth and earnestness than, as the reputed suitor of Carlota, or the airy and flippant recreant follower of the notorious Ramirez, she had attributed to him. Ruiz had the art of involuntarily suiting his demeanor and conversation. to those in whose company he was thrown, there was no conscious hypocrisy in this, for the desire to please was natural to him, and often served him in good stead in the absence of genuine feeling, and even under the sting of wounded self love held him silent, and masked his resentment. Many a time in his life long intercourse with Ramirez had he chafed under his haughty patronage and made no sign; and it was only when he found himself thwarted in what was for the moment his strongest passion, that he began to question the designs of the chieftain to whom he owed all the fortune which birth or talents combine to make possible to other

men.

He was the son of Reyes, a lifelong follower of Ramirez, for whom the chieftain had been sponsor, and towards whom he had with minute conscientiousness directed every worldly advantage which his means and position rendered possible. To RamTo Ramirez, Ruiz-who was known by the name of his mother (a not uncommon custom where her family renders the cognomen more honorable than that of the father) owed the chance which had made him a soldier of fortune instead of a laborer in the village where his brothers and sisters plodded and toiled, in absolute ignorance of the father who had forsaken them.

His knowledge of this strengthened his resolution to ignore the past, and suffer no ill-timed revelations to interfere with his determination to win at one step love and fortune by gaining the hand of the protegeè of Doña Isabel-a purpose he was certain Ramirez would oppose, for in a moment of confidence the General had intimated that

it was to a daughter of his own, in accordance with a promise made long years before to his father, that the young man was to be united; that for this destiny his future had been shaped, his fortunes moulded.

At any previous time the ambition of Ruiz would have been fully satisfied; his whole desire would have been to meet this promised bride, and by his marriage strengthen the interest which the caprice or affection of Ramirez alone caused to be centered upon him, and which, though often burdensome and tyrannous, was apparently the young man's sole passport to success. Even when in pique and half timorous defiance he took advantage of his separation from Ramirez to follow Carlota to Tres Hermanos, it was with no fixed resolution to tempt fortune alone. His short-lived passion and his independence and anger would have died together had, not his love for Chinita and the unexpected opportunities thrust upon him opened before him a prospect of advancement and triumph far above his wildest dreams, and completed his treason to his early patron, without teaching him the lesson of truth either to the new cause or to the mistress to which he was sworn. In the eyes of Doña Isabel he was the hireling whose faith was purchased for Gonzales, in those of Chinita, still the devoted follower of Ramirez, in his own--well, time and circumstance would decide.

Like thousands of others who took part in the strife that rent and decimated Mexico, Ruiz had but little conception of the points at issue. He had simply followed the lead of the popular chieftain to whom circumstances had attached him. He had learned by observation that wealth flowed from the coffers of the clergy into the hands of Ramirez who scattered it lavishly to all about him dissipating the greater part in luxurious living in cities, and the maintenance of hordes of followers in towns and cañons of the mountains; and with ready superstition returning much to the source

whence it came, for never a follower of his kept child unchristened or burial mass unsaid for want of means to purchase the services of a priest.

Ramirez had appeared to his young imagination absolute and ubiquitous; there were few daring deeds done, that he had not shared in them; scarce a town seized and its merchants arrested until the forced loans demanded from them were paid, scarce a conducta stopped, scarce a pronunciamiento with its excitement, and rapid exchange of power and property effected, that he took no part in. He had been found wherever fighting or plunder were. He had taken a bloody part in the repulsé of the Liberals at the city of Mexico, where the names of Zuloaga the president, and of Miramon alike were made infamous; he had shared in the futile attacks upon Vera Cruz, where Juarez at the head of the Provisional Government, maintained with stubborn tenacity, with a handful of followers, the most important stronghold upon the seaboard, promulgating those unprecedented resolutions and decrees, which revealed to the minds of the people that of which they had never hitherto dreamed-namely the separation of the church and state, the suppression of the monasteries, which like vampires had for generations drained the resources and absorbed the intellect of the people, and the secularization of those immense treasures which, donated by the faithful to feed the hungry and the sick, train the orphans, maintain the glory and worship of God, had become the means of oppression and bloodshed, and were the thews and sinews of the civil war, in which the clergy strove to maintain the abuses of the past, and forge fresh chains for the future.

In a country where the dogmas of Catholicism were as the oracles of God, where every heart was bound, either by the truths or the superstitions of Rome, or in most cases by both inseparably, the magnitude of the task assumed by the astute and

resolute Juarez was almost beyond the comprehension of those bred in the lands which have never groaned beneath the yoke of ecclesiastical tyranny. Any premature act, any unguarded word, might become the cause of offense; and yet it was no time for hesitation or timorous questioning.

Juarez knew the time, and the temper of his countrymen, and environed though he was, virtually imprisoned in one small town upon the seashore, his influence reached to the most remote districts of the interior; and although the armies of the clergy swept the country from sea to sea, in obscure fastnesses rose daring bands in tens and twenties and hundreds, and promulgating the new promises of liberty he sent forth, maintained them with a tenacity of purpose that made defeat impossible. Worsted in one quarter, they arose in another, employing with unscrupulous daring every means that cunning or audacity could bring within their power, claiming the excuse of necessity for those acts of rapine and cruelty in the satisfaction of personal enmities, the warfare upon the women and children, and the thousand barbarous deeds, which make the history of that time a continual record of horrors. Had example been necessary, they would have found it in the career or the opposing forces; but in truth it was a time when the worst passions of men seemed to walk hand in hand with the noblest, when patriot and plunderer, soldier and bandit, became inextricably confused, so that perhaps to none other so completely as to himself became the average actor in that bloody drama so baffling and unsatisfying an enigma.

Such was the mental condition of Ruiz, though it did not occur to him to define it. Attached to the clerical party by long association, and by the uninterrupted prosperity which he had shared with Ramirez, who since separating himself from Gonzales had followed an independent career, in which he had found the highest bidders for his

services among the crafty leaders of the old régime, (who to their rich gifts-added the indulgences of the Church, to which no soul however bloodstained and conscienceless could remain indifferent;) when Ruiz declared himself to Don Rafael a convert to the liberal cause, it was but as a precautionary measure recommended by Doña Rita; and it was only when he saw in Doña Isabel a patroness more powerful than the one he abandoned, added to his resolution to make himself independent of the man who had hitherto controlled as well as defended him, that he in reality inclined to the faction which day by day seemed gathering strength, and likely to become the dominant power.

But though his political views thus shaped themselves to meet Doña Isabel's, Ruiz was no more faithful to her purposes than to those of Chinita. To abandon Gonzales to his fate at El Toro-for he did not doubt that Ramirez would return with overwhelming numbers to the destruction of its insufficient garrison-and at the same time to win the confidence of Doña Isabel, and that of the troops under his command, thereafter seizing the first opportunity of having himself proclaimed their permanent leader, and marching to join Juarez, whose cause was becoming strengthened day by day by fresh accessions from the interior, became his dream.

Thus he hoped to blind Chinita by an apparent inability, rather than disinclination, to further her designs, mislead Doña Isabel, and to secure for himself a position which should render it not absurd or incredible that he should aspire to the hand of a protogeè of the Garcias, and to the dower, which he shrewdly suspected he might of right demand.

All these plans were not perfected in a day, and the defection of Ashley Ward and his servant, seriously interfered in his calculations; but he allowed no trace of uneasiness to appear in those rare intervals, when he found an opportunity to exchange

a few words with the impatient Chinita.

Unconsciously also, Doña Isabel herself aided to establish a bond of confidence between them. When the long irregular column, with banners flying, driving before it the lowing cattle, whose numbers grew less after each night's slaughter, and followed by the motley line of women and children with the rude equipage of the camp, would be fairly in motion, after the confusion of the early start, Ruiz would rein his prancing steed at the side of the carriage and deferently place himself at the orders of the ladies. On these occasions his manner was one of perfect respect to both, of entire concurrence in the dictates and desires of Doña Isabel, and of half indifferent, half amused rejection of the immature and inconsequent conjectures and opinions of the girl, for whose beauty he exhibited a timid but irresistable recognition, which flattered, while it disarmed the suspicious mind of Doña Isabel. She believed him, still the ardent admirer of Carlota-a thing which, she reflected, was under the circumstances most fortunate.

In the freshness and animation of those morning hours, conversation became natural and easy, and the events and names which were upon every tongue furnished food for abundant reminiscence and comment. Doña Isabel was eloquent in praise of Gonzales, who to his success at El Toro had added others in the neighborhood, which, together with the occupation of G

had made the entire district the undisputed territory of Liberalism. Ruiz assented to her enthusiasm with an ardor which seemed but natural in a youth who, having separated himself from one powerful patron, should desire to plate himself beneath the protection of another; and a comparison of the two, which should explain his defection from the first, followed in natural course, and with carefully chosen words, whose meaning held a subtle relation to the thoughts and predelictions of s two auditors, he spoke of the intrepid, and unscrupulous Ramirez.

More than once Doña Isabel, in the midst of his talk, sank back in the carriage lost in deep and painful thought, as the wild and terrible deeds in which the man had figured recalled to her mind the horrors of her youth. Deeds such as these might have been planned and executed by the boy, who had once been the pride, as he was afterwards the bane of her life, had he lived; but he was dead. Yes! thank God, though her heart had bled inwardly for long years! he had made no sign since the tale of his end came-he was dead! While she was thus lost in thought, Chinita listened with glowing cheek and eyes. Ruiz knew of the meeting with Ramirez to which she looked back with such peculiar and unwearying fascination, and discerning in her admiration of his former leader an unfailing means of rousing in her a personal attraction which in her passionate nature might become an absorbing love, he carefully refrained from giving her any hint of his real sentiments towards him, and spared no covert word, no mute eloquence of his dark and expressive eyes, to increase an enthusiasm which had already led her into such strange defiance of the plans of Dona Isabel. To reinstate her hero in the power from which he had fallen -became her dream, the aspiration of her soul.

On the fifth night of their journey, it chanced that they entered a village, where Doña Isabel and her servants were enabled to find a shelter, which after the restricted and insufficient accomodation of tents, seemed absolutely luxurious, primitive and rude though it was. Doña Isabel wearied with travel, and depressed with anxiety at the unaccountable delay of Gonzales, who she had supposed would have hastened to take command of the troops which her energy and bounty had provided, had early retired. to the room assigned her. Chinita had reluctantly accompanied her, for a fandango was in progress in the great kitchen, the charcoal braseros flaming red against the dark walls of yellow washed adobe, and shining

upon the bronzed faces of a group of swarthy men who strummed upon stringed instruments of various shapes and sizes; while another group of mingled men and women went through the rhythmic motions of the dance, with which the young girl, gazing from her cell-like retreat across the court had long been so familiar.

She had never danced since the night that she had fled from the wedding fiesta into the waiting arms of Doña Isabel. She had thought of the scene and its pleasures only with anger and disgust; and yet as she looked into the red glare and watched the swaying figures, she longed to rush in and throw herself amongst them. To her, as to Doña Isabel, the time of suspense was growing unbearably long; she was mad for action.

Unreasonably, she felt that there among their caste she might find PedroPepé some one who would do her bidding, who would not dare put her off as Ruiz was doing with tantalizing promises.

She knew that instead of following the most direct paths, as Doña Isabel had commanded, the route on various pretexts had been changed-she supposed to make communication with Ramirez possible. She had no reason to doubt the good faith of Ruiz, yet she was impatient and miserable. A straggler upon the road had given them the news that Ramirez had been seen upon the hills with a forlorn and ill-armed troop, which bore evidence of the ill fortune, which the defeat at El Toro had inaugurated. She had conceived a violent and unreasonable antagonism to Gonzales, who from his whilom associate, had become the successful opponent and rival of the man whom by childish gift of an amulet she had fancied herself endowing with invincible good fortune. Even as she grew older, her faith in the magic powers of a charm which had been the creation of a wizard and had been blessed by Holy Church, scarcely grew less; and the remembrance of it undoubtedly strengthened the fealty so strangely sworn.

Besides, a purpose had arisen in her mind. of appealing to him to establish her position in the house of Garcia by wresting from Doña Isabel an acknowledgment, which would give her her rights and a certain status (though clouded it might be) where now she was but the recipient of favors-the peasant born, raised to a dignity-which was a mere scoff and jest to the ready wit of the sarcastic and epigrammatic rancheros. Chinita knew them well. Were not their gifts and prejudices her own?

She glanced from the barred window where she stood back through the gloom of the apartment to the bed where Doña Isabel was lying—already asleep. The yellow light of a candle just touched her pale face; it was contracted with that habitual expression of pain which the darkness of night permitted to the proud and suffering woman, but which in the day, or under the eye of even the most unobservant, she banished resolutely, though its shadow rested ever, uncomprehended, unpitied.

There was something in the lassitude of the figure, the hopeless grief upon the countenance, which for the first time suggested to Chinita the possibility that emotions deeper than that pride of birth, which was in herself as great in degree, though neither as pure in principle nor bounded by the conventionalities of caste, had actuated the deeds, and embittered the life of her who to the eye had been so absolute, so unassailable. With a feeling of awe Chinita took a step towards her, when a sound drew her glance to the court. Into the motley throng of lounging soldiers and arrieros, with their mules feeding and stamping around them, two belated travelers forced their way. It was the voice of one of them that had startled her, and claimed instantly all her thoughts, setting her heart beating stiflingly as she sprang to the lattice, and pressed her face eagerly against the iron bars.

The red light from the kitchen was augmented by the flame of a smoking torch, as

a servant came forward to take the horse of the foremost rider. When he leaped lightly from his saddle, pushing back his broad hat, she recognized the American, while a woman ran across the court and clasped the arm of the other as he alighted-it was Caterina, the wife of Gabriel.

"Hist! hist!" said the man in a low voice, no crying nor screaming. The Señor and I am here on business that would please your captain but little. By good fortune he is camped to-night at the outskirts of the village, and dare not leave his post. Tell me, Caterina-and not a word to Gabriel when thou seest him-where is Chinita ?"

Before Chinita could gather her wits to reply, a hand was thrust through the bars almost at his shoulder. It was Ashley who first saw it; he took it for an instant in his own, and bent over it. "I must speak with you,” he said, "join me in the corridor as soon as the house is quiet. I have much to say."

It was not the voice of a lover that spoke, but it thrilled her as that of a prophet. "Speak low,” she answered, breathlessly, Doña Isabel sleeps close by; but I will escape-yes, I will come to you. Is not, Caterina with you? She must take my place here. The door is locked; the key is in the hand of Doña Isabel; but I will have it. Trust me; the Señora sleeps heavily."

The girl's face glowed with excitement; she was ready for any adventure, the more daring, the more welcome. Ashley Ward looked at her with a strange pride and admiration—this was a nature that no shame could crush, no outward fate dismay!

She, standing at the grating, feeling an almost unrestrainable desire to burst into wild laughter and tears, was utterly silent, waiting the hour when, the revelry over, sleep would fall upon the house. drew into the shade of the corridor. meson was but a caravansary-there was none to notice who came or went. In the

Ashley The