nctly marked, approaching my door.
Suddenly the two leaves of the folding-door were thrown wide, and an
elderly man, in a general's uniform, followed by two other officers,
entered.

Without taking any notice of the salute I made him, he walked towards
the fireplace, and, standing with his back to it, said to one of his
aides-de-camp, "Read the 'proces-verbal,' Jose."

Jose bowed, and, taking from his sabretache a very lengthy roll
of paper, began to read aloud, but with such rapidity and such
indistinctness withal that I could only, and with the greatest
difficulty, catch a stray word here and there. The titles of her Majesty
the Queen appeared to occupy full ten minutes, and an equal time to be
passed in setting forth the authority under whose jurisdiction I then
stood. These over, there came something about an individual who, born a
Mexican or a native of Texas, has assumed the style, title, and dignity
of a Count of Spain, such rank being taken for purposes of deception,
and the better to effect certain treasonable designs, to be set forth
hereafter. After this there came a flourish about the duties of
loyalty and fidelity to the sovereign, whose private virtues came in by
parenthesis, together with a very energetic denunciation on all base
and wicked men who sought to carry dissension into the bosom of
their country, and convulse with the passions of a civil war a nation
proverbially tranquil and peace-loving.

Nothing could be less interesting than the style of this paper, except
the manner of him who recited it. State truisms, in inflated language,
and wearisome platitudes about nothing, received no additional grace
from a snuffling nasal intonation and a short cough.

I listened at first with the anxiety of a man whose fortunes hung on the
issue; then, as the vague, rambling character of the document diminished
this interest, I heard with more indifference; and, lastly, completely
wearied by the monotony of the voice, and the tiresome iterations of
the style, I could not prevent my thoughts from wandering far from the
affair in hand.

What fearful crimes were alleged against me,--what dire offences I was
charged with,--I was not to hear, since, lost in the pleasant land of
day-dreams, I fancied myself strolling in the shade of a forest, with
Donna Maria beside me, while I poured out a most impassioned narrative
of my love and fidelity. Nor was it till the reading was concluded, and
a loud "Hem!" from the G