g, "_Viva la Reina!
Viva Maria Cristina! Viva Isabel Segunda!_"

Checking her steed before the standard, Concha first saluted the
surprised group. Then giving a hand to the nearest (and best-looking)
officer, she dismounted with a spring light as the falling of a leaf
from a tree. With great solemnity she advanced to the staff from which
the heavy standard hung low, and taking the embroidered fringe between
finger and thumb, touched it with her lips.

Yet if you had called our little Concha a humbug--which in certain
aspects of her character would have been a perfectly proper
description--she would have replied in the utmost simplicity, and with a
completely disarming smile, "But I only did it for Rollo's sake!"

Which was true in its way, but (strangely enough) the thought of an
audience always stirred Mistress Concha to do her best--"for Rollo's
sake!"

"Take me to the General," she said, with a glance round the circle; "I
have ridden from the camp of the enemy to bring him tidings of the
utmost importance. Every moment is precious!"

"But the General is asleep," a staff-officer objected; "he gave orders
that he was not to be called on any account."

"Tell him that upon his hearing my news depend the lives of the
Queen-Regent and her daughter, the young Queen. The Cause itself hangs
in the balance!"

And to hear Concha pronounce the last words was enough to have made a
convert of Don Carlos himself. Who could have supposed that till within
a few hours she had been heart and soul with the enemies of "The Cause"?
Certainly not the smart Madrid officers who stood round, wishing that
they had shaved more recently, and that their "other" uniforms had not
been hanging, camphor-scented on account of the moths, in the
close-shuttered lodgings about the Puerta del Sol.

The Commander-in-Chief solved the difficulty, however, at that very
moment, by appearing opportunely at the door of his tent.

General Espartero at this time was a man of forty-five. His services in
South America had touched his hair with grey. In figure he was heavily
built, but, in spite of fever-swamps and battle-wounds, still erect and
soldierly.

"What news does the _Senorita_ bring?" he asked with a pleasant smile.

"That I can only tell to yourself, General," the girl answered; "my name
is Concha Cabezos of Seville. My father had the honour to serve with
you in the War of the Independence!"

"And a good soldier he was, _Senorita_," said Es