the seductive gantlet of the creole belles of New Orleans,--only to fall
victim in my mature twenties to the first glance of this haughty Spanish
senorita. What could I hope from one who doubtless regarded me as our
Western girls regard the red Indian? I do not mean with the like horror,
but with a like contempt.

Not alone was she a Spanish Catholic, to whom marriage with a heretic
would mean little less than sacrilege,--she was the daughter of a
Castilian family whose name implied kinship with one of the royal houses
of France. I was a man without a grandfather, and, what gave me real
concern, a citizen of a Republic which, in return for the carrying trade
of the world, was grovelling at the feet of England and France,
submissive to their contemptuous kicks.

True, Spain also bowed beneath the iron hand of Napoleon, but it was
because of the might of that hand, and not, as with us, because of a
willingness to endure shame rather than part with the commerce of which
our humiliation was the price. Far better war and death than such barter
of principles for gold!

As I thought of my abject countrymen I did not wonder that my lady had
looked upon me with hauteur; and yet I could not but reflect on the
graciousness of her thanks from the carriage window and that inscrutable
glance at our last parting. Hope interpreted the glance to mean that she
was heart-free and to be won by him who could stir her heart. Despair
said that she had gone forever beyond my reach, to the far distant home
of her uncle in New Spain. One answer to this last was the wild fancy
that, could I but attain the leadership of the Western expedition, I
might penetrate the wilderness and seek her out in the midst of her
people.

At the height of my fantastic scheming, gossip at last enlightened me to
the fact that my lady was yet in the city, stopping with a humble family
of Catholics, and precluded from attendance at social functions by the
absence of her uncle on a trip to Philadelphia.

Rumor added that the senor had gone to the old Capitol in company with
Colonel Burr, who, having spent much time at the British Legation with
Mr. Merry, the English Minister, had hurried North to confer with the
Marquis de Casa Yrujo. But Rumor and Colonel Burr were old bedmates, and
I gave little heed to the report at the time.

My interest was centred on the joyous news that the senorita was still
in Washington, not upon the curious information that her uncle an