WAITING AND WATCHING.

As a rule, people of melancholy temperament, or with a sorrow at the
heart, give way to it within doors in the privacy of their own
apartments. The daughter of Don Ignacio had been more often taught to
assuage hers upon the house-top, to which she was accustomed to ascend
daily, staying there for hours alone. For this she had opportunity; her
father, busied with State affairs, spending most of his time--at least
during the diurnal hours--at Government headquarters in the _Palacio_.

On this day, however, Luisa Valverde mounted up to the azotea with
feelings, and under an impulse, very different from that hitherto
actuating her. Her behaviour, too, was different. When she made her
way up and took stand inside the mirador, her eyes, instead of wandering
all around, or resting dreamily on the landscape, with no care for its
attractions, were turned in a particular direction, and became fixed
upon a single point. This was where the road, running from the city to
Tacubaya, alongside the aqueduct of Chapultepec, parts from the latter,
diverging abruptly to the left. Beyond this point the causeway, carried
on among maguey plants, and Peruvian pepper trees, cannot be seen from
the highest house-top in the city.

Why on this day, more than any other, did the young lady direct her
glance to the bend in the road, there keeping it steadfast? For what
reason was the expression upon her countenance so different from that of
other days? No listless look now; instead, an earnest eager gaze, as
though she expected to see some one whose advent was of the greatest
interest to her. It could only be the coming of some one, as one going
would have been long since visible by the side of the aqueduct.

And one she did expect to come that way; no grand cavalier on prancing
steed, but a simple pedestrian--in short, her own servant. She had sent
him on an errand to Tacubaya, and was now watching for, and awaiting his
return. It was the nature of his errand which caused her to look for
him so earnestly.

On no common business had he been despatched, but one of a confidential
character, and requiring tact in its execution. But Jose, a _mestizo_
whom she had commissioned, possessed this, besides having her
confidence, and she had no fear of his betraying her. Not that it was a
life or death matter; only a question of delicacy. For his errand was
to inquire, whether among the Texan prisoners taken to Tacubaya