d not turn to him, or answer him a word.

"Mi madre, here comes Rachela! Say 'God bless you, Juan.' It is my last
word, sweet mother!"

She neither moved nor spoke. The next moment Rachela entered, and the
wretched woman abandoned herself to her care with vehement sobs and
complainings.

Jack was inexpressibly sorrowful. He went into the garden, hoping in its
silence and solitude to find some relief. He loved his mother with his
strongest affection. Every one of her sobs wrung his heart. Was it right
to wound and disobey her for the sake of--freedom? Mother was a certain
good; freedom only a glorious promise. Mother was a living fact; freedom
an intangible idea.

Ah, but men have always fought more passionately for ideas than for
facts! Tyrants are safe while they touch only silver and gold; but when
they try to bind a man's ideals--the freedom of his citizenship--the
purity of his faith--he will die to preserve them in their integrity.

Besides, freedom for every generation has but her hour. If that hour is
not seized, no other may come for the men who have suffered it to pass.
But mother would grow more loving as the days went by. And this was ever
the end of Jack's reasoning; for no man knows how deep the roots of his
nature strike into his native land, until he sees her in the grasp of a
tyrant, and hears her crying to him for deliverance.

The struggle left the impress on his face. He passed a boundary in it.
Certain boyish feelings and graces would never again be possible to him.
He went into the house, weary, and longing for companionship that would
comfort or strengthen him. Only Isabel was in the parlor. She appeared
to be asleep among the sofa cushions, but she opened her eyes wide as he
took a chair beside her.

"I have been waiting to kiss you again, Juan; do you think this trouble
will last very long?"

"It will be over directly, Iza. Do not fret yourself about it, angel
mio. The Americans are great fighters, and their quarrel is just. Well,
then, it will be settled by the good God quickly."

"Rachela says that Santa Anna has sent off a million of men to fight the
Americans. Some they will cut in pieces, and some are to be sent to the
mines to work in chains."

"God is not dead of old age, Iza. Santa Anna is a miraculous tyrant. He
has committed every crime under heaven, but I think he will not cut the
Americans in pieces."

"And if the Americans should even make him go back to Mexico!"

"I t