nd Mariquita, who had a fat lazy husband and a swarm of brown
children, sighed heavily. "She live happy in the old house and is not so
poor. And always she have the rose-bush. She smile, now, sometimes, when
she water it."

"Well, it is many years," said the girl, philosophically. "Here she
come."

La Tulita, or Dona Herminia, as she now was called, walked briskly
across the meadow and sat down on the stone which had come to be called
for her. She spoke to each in turn, but did not ask for news. She had
ceased long since to do that. She still came because the habit held her,
and because she liked the women.

"Ah, Mariquita," she said, "the linen is not as fine as when we were
young. And thou art glad to get the shirts of the Americans now. My poor
Faquita!"

"Coarse things," said Mariquita, disdainfully. Then a silence fell,
so sudden and so suggestive that Dona Herminia felt it and turned
instinctively to Mariquita.

"What is it?" she asked rapidly. "Is there news to-day? Of what?"

Mariquita's honest face was grave and important.

"There is news, senorita," she said.

"What is it?"

The washing-women had dropped back from the tubs and were listening
intently.

"Ay!" The oracle drew a long breath. "There is war over there, you know,
senorita," she said, making a vague gesture toward the Atlantic states.

"Yes, I know. Is it decided? Is the North or the South victorious? I am
glad that the wash-tub mail has not--"

"It is not that, senorita."

"Then what?"

"The Lieutenant--he is a great general now."

"Ay!"

"He has won a great battle--And--they speak of his wife, senorita."

Dona Herminia closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them and
glanced slowly about her. The blue bay, the solemn pines, the golden
atmosphere, the cemetery on the hill, the women washing at the stone
tubs--all was unchanged. Only the flimsy wooden houses of the Americans
scattered among the adobes of the town and the aging faces of the women
who had been young in her brief girlhood marked the lapse of years.
There was a smile on her lips. Her monotonous life must have given her
insanity or infinite peace, and peace had been her portion. In a few
minutes she said good-by to the women and went home. She never went to
the tubs again.

THE CONQUEST OF DONA JACOBA

I

A forest of willows cut by a forking creek, and held apart here and
there by fields of yellow mustard blossoms fluttering in their pale
green n