"Remember your promise to my father! Oh, mi madre, do not leave Isabel and me alone!"

"You, too, dear ones! We will all go together, till these dreadful days are past."

"No, no, no! Isabel and I will not go. We will die rather."

"The Senorita talks like a foolish one. Listen again! When Santa Anna comes for judgment, it will be swift and terrible. This house and estate will be forfeited. The faithful Church may hope righteously to obtain it. The sisters have long needed a good home. The convent will then come to you. You will have no shelter but the Church. Come to her arms ere her entreaties are turned to commands."

"My husband told me--"

"Saints of G.o.d! you have no husband. He has forfeited every right to advise you. Consider that, daughter; and if you trust not my advice, there is yet living your honorable uncle, the Marquis de Gonzaga."

Antonia caught eagerly at this suggestion. It at least offered some delay, in which the Senora might be strengthened to resist the coercion of Fray Ignatius.

"Mother, it is a good thought. My great-uncle will tell you what to do; and my father will not blame you for following his advice. Perhaps even he may offer his home. You are the child of his sister."

Fray Ignatius walked towards the fire-place and stood rubbing slowly his long, thin hands before the blaze, while the Senora and her daughters discussed this proposal. The half-frantic mother was little inclined to make any further effort to resist the determined will of her old confessor; but the tears of Isabel won from her a promise to see her uncle.

"Then, my daughter, lose no time. I cannot promise you many days in which choice will be left you. Go this afternoon, and to-morrow I will call for your decision."

It was not a visit that the Senora liked to make. She had deeply offended her uncle by her marriage, and their intercourse had since been of the most ceremonious and infrequent kind. But surely, at this hour, when she was left without any one to advise her steps, he would remember the tie of blood between them.

He received her with more kindness than she had antic.i.p.ated. His eyes glittered in their deep sockets when she related her extremity and the priest's proposal, and his small shrunken body quivered with excitement as he answered:

"Saints and angels! Fray Ignatius is right about Santa Anna. We shall see that he will make caps for his soldiers out of the skins of these infidel ingrates. But as for going into the convent, I know not. A miserable marriage you made for yourself, Maria. Pardon, if I say so much! I let the word slip always. I was never one to bite my tongue. I am all old man--very well, come here, you and your daughters, till the days of blood are over. There is room in the house, and a few comforts in it also. I have some power with Santa Anna. He is a great man--a great man! In all his wars, good fortune flies before him."

He kissed her hands as he opened the door, and then went back to the fire, and bent, muttering, over it: "Giver of good! a true Yturbide; a gentle woman; she is like my sister Mercedes--very like her. These poor women who trust me, as I am a sinner before G.o.d, I am unhappy to deceive them."

Fray Ignatius might have divined his thoughts, for he entered at the moment, and said as he approached him:

"You have done right. The soul must be saved, if all is lost. This is not a time for the friends of the Church and of Mexico to waver. The Church is insulted every day by these foreign heretics--"

"But you are mistaken, father; the Church holds up her head, whatever happens. Even the vice-regal crown is not lost--the Church has cleft it into mitres."

Fray Ignatius smiled, but there was a curious and crafty look of inquiry on his face. "The city is turbulent, Marquis, and there is undoubtedly a great number of Mexicans opposed to Santa Anna."

"Do you not know Mexicans yet? They would be opposed to G.o.d Almighty, rather than confess they were well governed. Bah! the genius of Mexico is mutiny. They scarcely want a leader to move their madness. They rebel on any weak pretence. They bl.u.s.ter when they are courted; they crouch when they are oppressed. They are fools to all the world but themselves.

I beg the Almighty to consider in my favor, that some over-hasty angel misplaced my lot. I should have been born in--New York."

The priest knew that he was talking for irritation, but he was too politic to favor the mood. He stood on the hearth with his hands folded behind him, and with a delightful suavity turned the conversation upon the country rather than the people. It was a glorious day in the dawn of spring. The tenderest greens, the softest blues, the freshest scents, the clearest air, the most delightful sunshine were everywhere. The white old town, with its picturesque crowds, its murmur of voices and laughter, its echoes of fife and drum, its loves and its hatreds, was at his feet; and, far off, the hazy glory of the mountains, the greenness and freshness of Paradise, the peace and freedom of the vast, unplanted places. The old marquis was insensibly led to contemplate the whole; and, in so doing, to put uppermost that pride of country which was the base of every feeling susceptible to the priest's influence.

"Such a pleasant city, Marquis! Spanish monks founded it. Spanish and Mexican soldiers have defended it. Look at its fine churches and missions; its lovely homes, and blooming gardens."

"It is also all our own, father. It was but yesterday I said to one of those insolent Americans who was condescending to admire it: 'Very good, Senor; and, if you deign to believe me, it was not brought from New York. Such as you see it, it was made by ourselves here at San Antonio.'

Saints in heaven! the fellow laughed in my face. We were mutually convinced of each other's stupidity."

"Ah, how they envy us the country! And you, Marquis, who have traveled over the world, you can imagine the reason?"

"Father, I will tell you the reason; it is the craving in the heart to find again the lost Eden. The Almighty made Texas with full hands. When He sets his heart on a man, he is permitted to live there."

"Grace of G.o.d! You speak the truth. Shall we then give up the gift of His hand to heretics and infidels?"

"I cannot imagine it."

"Then every one must do the work he can do. Some are to slay the unbelievers; others; are to preserve the children of the Church. Your niece and her two daughters will be lost to the faith, unless you interfere for their salvation. Of you will their souls be required."

"By Saint Joseph, it is a duty not in agreement with my desire! I, who have carefully abstained from the charge of a wife and daughters of my own."

"It is but for a day or two, Marquis, until the matter is arranged. The convent is the best of all refuges for women so desolate."

The marquis did not answer. He lifted a book and began to read; and Fray Ignatius watched him furtively.

In the mean time the Senora had reached her home. She was pleased with the result of her visit. A little kindness easily imposed upon this childlike woman, and she trusted in any one who was pleasant to her.

"You may believe me, Antonia," she said; "my uncle was in a temper most unusual. He kissed my hands. He offered me his protection. That is a great thing, I a.s.sure you. And your father cannot object to our removal there."

Antonia knew not what answer to make. Her heart misgave her. Why had Fray Ignatius made the proposal? She was sure it was part of an arrangement, and not a spontaneous suggestion of the moment. And she was equally sure that any preconcerted plan, having Fray Ignatius for its author, must be inimical to them.

Her mother's entry had not awakened Isabel, who lay asleep upon a sofa.

The Senora was a little nettled at the circ.u.mstance. "She is a very child! A visit of such importance! And she is off to the land of dreams while I am fatiguing myself! I wish indeed that she had more consideration!" Then Antonia brought her chocolate, and, as she drank it and smoked her cigarito, she chatted in an almost eager way about the persons she had seen.

"Going towards the Plaza, I met judge Valdez. I stopped the carriage, and sent my affections to the Senora. Would you believe it? He answered me as if his mouth were full of snow. His disagreeable behavior was exactly copied by the Senora Silvestre and her daughter Esperanza. Dona Julia and Pilar de Calval did not even perceive me. Santa Maria! there are none so blind as those who won't see! Oh, indeed! I found the journey like the way of salvation--full of humiliations. I would have stopped at the store of the Jew Lavenburg, and ordered many things, but he turned in when he saw me coming. Once, indeed, he would have put his hat on the pavement for me to tread upon. But he has heard that your father has made a rebel of himself, and what can be expected? He knows when Santa Anna has done with the rebels not one of them will have anything left for G.o.d to rain upon. And there was a great crowd and a great tumult. I think the whole city had a brain fever."

At this moment Isabel began to moan in her sleep as if her soul was in some intolerable terror or grief; and ere Antonia could reach her she sprang into the middle of the room with a shriek that rang through the house.

It was some minutes before the child could be soothed. She lay in her mother's arms, sobbing in speechless distress; but at length she was able to articulate her fright:

"Listen, mi madre, and may the Holy Lady make you believe me! I have had a dream. G.o.d be blessed that it is not yet true! I will tell you. It was about Fray Ignatius and our uncle the Marquis de Gonzaga. My good angel gave it to me; for myself and you all she gave it; and, as my blessed Lord lives! I will not go to them! SI! I will cut my white throat first!" and she drew her small hand with a pa.s.sionate gesture across it. She had stood up as she began to speak, and the action, added to her unmistakable terror, her stricken face and air of determination, was very impressive.

"You have had a dream, my darling?"

"Yes, an awful dream, Antonia! Mary! Mary! Tender Mary, pity us!"

"And you think we should not go to the house of the marquis?"

"Oh, Antonia! I have seen the way. It is black and cold, and full of fear and pain. No one shall make me take it. I have the stiletto of my grandmother Flores. I will ask Holy Mary to pardon me, and then--in a moment--I would be among the people of the other world. That would be far better than Fray Ignatius and the house of Gonzaga."

The Senora was quite angry at this fresh complication. It was really incredible what she had to endure. And would Antonia please to tell her where else they were to go? They had not a friend left in San Antonio--they did not deserve to have one--and was it to be supposed that a lady, born n.o.ble, could follow the Americans in an ox-wagon?

Antonia might think it preferable to the comfortable house of her relation; but blessed be the hand of G.o.d, which had opened the door of a respectable shelter to her.

"I will go in the ox-wagon," said Isabel, with a sullen determination; "but I will not go into my uncle's house. By the saint of my birth I swear it."

"Mother, listen to Antonia. When one door shuts, G.o.d opens another door.

Our own home is yet undisturbed. Do you believe what Fray Ignatius says of the coming of Santa Anna? I do not. Until he arrives we are safe in our own home; and when the hour for going away comes, even a little bird can show us the way to take. And I am certain that my father is planning for our safety. If Santa Anna was in this city, and behaving with the brutality which is natural to him, I would not go away until my father sent the order. Do you think he forgets us? Be not afraid of such a thing. It cannot take place."

Towards dusk Senor Navarro called, and the Senora brought him into her private parlor and confided to him the strait they were in. He looked with sympathy into the troubled, tear-stained faces of these three helpless women, and listened with many expressive gestures to the proposal of the priest and the offer of the old marquis.

"Most excellent ladies," he answered; "it is a plot. I a.s.sure you that it is a plot. Certainly it was not without reason I was so unhappy about you this afternoon. Even while I was at the bull-fight, I think our angels were in a consultation about your affairs. Your name was in my ears above all other sounds."

"You say it is a plot, Senor. Explain to us what you mean?"