lly
protected us, and I have not needed to use the arms in my house. But
thousands of husbands and fathers need them hourly, to procure food for
their children and wives, and to protect them from the savages. One
tie binds us. Their cause is my cause. Their country is my country, and
their God is my God. Children, am I right or wrong?"

They both stepped swiftly to his side. Isabel laid her cheek against
his, and answered him with a kiss. Antonia clasped his hand, stood close
to him, and said: "We are all sure that you are right, dear father. My
mother is weary and sick with anxiety, but she thinks so too. Mother
always thinks as you do, father. Dear mother, here is Rachela with a cup
of chocolate, and you will sleep and grow strong before morning."

But the Senora, though she suffered her daughter's caresses, did not
answer them, neither did she speak to her husband, though he opened the
door for her and stood waiting with a face full of anxious love for a
word or a smile from her. And the miserable wife, still more miserable
than her husband, noticed that Isabel did not follow her. Never before
had Isabel seemed to prefer any society to her mother's, and the unhappy
Senora felt the defection, even amid her graver trouble.

But Isabel had seen something new in her father that night; something
that touched her awakening soul with admiration. She lingered with him
and Antonia, listening with vague comprehension to their conversation,
until Rachela called her angrily; and as she was not brave enough for a
second rebellion that night, she obediently answered her summons.

An hour afterwards, Antonia stepped cautiously within her room. She was
sleeping, and smiling in her sleep. Where was her loving, innocent soul
wandering? Between the myrtle hedges and under the fig-tree with her
lover? Oh, who can tell where the soul goes when sleep gives it some
release? Perhaps it is at night our angels need to watch us most
carefully. For the soul, in dreams, can visit evil and sorrowful places,
as well as happy and holy ones. But Isabel slept and smiled, and Antonia
whispered a prayer at her side ere she went to her own rest.

And the waning moon cast a pathetic beauty over the Eden-like land, till
dawn brought that mystical silence in which every new day is born. Then
Robert Worth rose from the chair in which he had been sitting so long,
remembering the past and forecasting the future. He walked to the
window, opened it, and loo