emember me! In your prayers, remember Juan!"

With what tears and sobs was this loving letter read by all the women;
and the Senora finally laid it where she had laid the precious curl that
had come with it. She wanted "the Woman blessed among women" to share
the mother joy and the mother anguish in her heart. Besides, she was a
little nervous about Jack's memento of himself. Her superstitious lore
taught her that severed hair is a token of severed love. She wished he
had not sent it, and yet she could not bear to have it out of her sight.

"Gracias a Dios!" she kept ejaculating. "I have one child that loves me,
and me only. I shall forgive Juan everything. I shall not forgive Thomas
many things. But Juan! oh! it is impossible not to love him entirely.
There is no one like him in the world. If the good God will only give
him back to me, I will say a prayer of thanks every day of my life long.
Oh, Juan! Juan! my boy! my dear one!"

Thus she talked to herself and her daughters continually. She wrote a
letter full of motherly affection and loving incoherencies; and if Jack
had ever received it he would doubtless have understood and kissed
every word, and worn the white messenger close to his heart. But between
writing letters and sending them, there were in those days intervals
full of impossibilities. Love then had to be taken on trust. Rarely,
indeed, could it send assurances of fidelity and affection.

Jack's letter brightened the day, and formed a new topic of
conversation, until Ortiz returned in the evening. His disguise had
enabled him to linger about the Plaza and monte table, and to hear and
observe all that was going on.

"The city is enjoying itself, and making money," he said, in reply
to question from the Senora. "Certainly the San Antonians approve of
liberty, but what would you do? In Rome one does not quarrel with the
Pope; in San Antonio one must approve of despotism, when Santa Anna
parades himself there."

"Has he made any preparations for attacking the Alamo? Will the
Americans resist him?"

"Senorita Antonia, he is erecting a battery on the river bank, three
hundred yards from the Alamo. This morning, ere the ground was touched,
he reviewed his men in the Plaza. He stood on an elevation at the church
door, surrounded by his officers and the priests, and unfurled the
Mexican flag."

"That was about eleven o'clock, Captain?"

"Si, Senorita. You are precisely exact."

"I heard at that hour a d