ed my conversation almost exclusively to him,
rarely speaking a word to my fair companion, and then only upon the
commonest questions of the way.

As none of us had eaten since the day previous, nor was there any
baiting-place till we reached Bexar, it was necessary to make the best
of our way thither with all speed. The Fra knew the road perfectly, and
by his skill in detecting the marks on trees, the position of certain
rocks, and the course of the streams, gave me some insight into the
acute qualities necessary for a prairie traveller. These themes, too,
furnished the greater portion of our conversation, which, I am free to
own, offered many a long interval of dreary silence. The Fra's thoughts
dwelt gloomily on his late disaster, while Donna Maria and myself were
condemned to the occasional exchange of a chance remark or some question
about the road.

Once or twice Fra Miguel questioned me on the subject of my own history;
but ere I had proceeded any length in detailing my veracious narrative,
an accidental word or remark would show that he was inattentive to what
I was speaking, and only occupied by his own immediate reflections.

Why, then, trouble myself with biographical inventions which failed to
excite any interest? And so I relapsed into a silence plodding and moody
as his own.

At length the path became too narrow for us all to go abreast, and as
my duties were to guide Charry by the bridle, I became the companion of
Maria by force of circumstances; still, Fra Miguel kept up close behind,
and however abstracted at other times, he now showed himself "wide
awake" on the subject of our intercourse. Denied the pleasure of talking
to each other, we could at least exchange glances; and this was a
privilege no surveillance, however rigid, could deny us. These are small
and insignificant details, which were of little moment at the time,
and led to even less for the future; but I record them as the first
stirrings of love in a heart which might have been deemed too intent
upon its own cares to admit of others. And here let me observe that the
taste for stratagem--the little wiles and snares inspired by a first
passion--are among the strongest incentives to its origin. It was
the secrecy of our meeting at night, the little difficulties of our
intercourse by day, the peril of discovery as we spoke together, the
danger of detection as we exchanged glances, that, by giving us a common
object, suggested a common feeli