asure.'

'Opening the door, I immediately proceeded to summon Donna Teresa.

''Senora,' said I, 'here is a lady who is anxious to see you.'

'My beauteous countrywoman gave a most expressive look, which very
clearly signified that my instant departure would be satisfactory to her
feelings, but my curiosity was so far kindled that I pretended not to
understand, but remained standing near the door. My want of tact seemed
once more to vex her, but after a moment's reflection, she addressed the
worthy Teresa.

''Senora,' said she, in a low voice, but still not so low but I could
overhear, 'The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.'

''If you will follow me, Senora, I will show you to Mr. Albert Pride's
rooms,' said mine hostess, as she led the way up-stairs.

IV.

''Well, Doctor of mine,' said I, addressing the disinterested Teresa,
when after a delay of some twenty minutes she appeared with my dinner,
'what do you think of our last new arrival? Matters are beginning to
grow a little complicated.'

''What do I think? Why, I think that she is marvelously beautiful; such
a perfect beauty I never saw before. But yet, her eye displeases me.'

''That, allow me to remark, is not a very logical conclusion.'

''Oh! as for a logical conclusion, I don't know what that is; but I know
just what I feel, though perhaps I can't tell you in words, why I do
feel so; but I am candid, I am; and I tell you, I don't like her eye.'

'After Donna Teresa's departure, I sat with the book which usually
served me as a companion at meal-times, wide open on the table, but it
remained unread. My strange encounter with this beautiful stranger had
taken entire possession of my mind. What could be the link between her
and this Albert Pride, who had for three months been awaiting her
arrival? Why should she be as anxious as he to avoid recognition? For
every thing conspired to prove this--her emotion when I asked if she
were French, her pallor and faintness when I claimed to be a
fellow-citizen, her indignation at the thought of my playing the spy
upon her, and her hesitation to speak in my presence to Donna Lopez--all
tended to show she desired to preserve the strictest _incognito_.

'The convent-bells of all Mexico were ringing the _Angelus_, and I was
still seated at the dinner-table, absorbed in deep thought. My
imagination had been so racked that it passed from the domain of the
real, and reveled in the most fantastic regions of the ide