hen their conversation was interrupted, and he
had no opportunity of asking her till they had mounted their horses and
were riding homeward. Jack at last put the question.

"In all parts of the world," answered Stella, with some little
hesitation. "Look, too, over yonder vast continent." She pointed to
the blue mountains of Cumana seen across the gulf. "From north to south
wrong and oppression reigns. Even in those states nominally free, one
set of tyrants have but been superseded by another as regardless of the
rights of the people as the first."

"I have not often met young ladies imbued with sentiments such as
yours," observed Jack.

"Few young ladies you have met, probably, have fathers like mine,"
answered Stella.

She stopped as if she was saying too much. Jack recollected the
observations he had heard at Don Antonio's luncheon-room. Probably the
colonel is engaged in one of the many revolutionary schemes connected
with the late Spanish South American dependencies, he thought. "His
daughter very naturally has faith in the justice of the cause he has
espoused."

"Yes, I confess that I have adopted my father's sentiments," said
Stella, as if she had known what was passing in his mind. "It is but
natural, for we are all in all to each other. My mother is dead, and I
have no sister or brother. He might have enjoyed a well-won rest at
home without dishonour; but he disdained, while possessing health and
strength, to remain in idleness, and I entreated that he would not leave
me behind, so we came out here some time ago; and while he has made
excursions on the continent, I have mostly resided with our friends
here, though I have occasionally accompanied him. We have made some
long trips by sea, and I have ridden with him several hundred miles on
horseback."

Jack, who believed that young ladies were most fitly employed in
household affairs, or in practising the accomplishments they might have
learned with an occasional attendance at a ball or archery meeting,
thought his fair companion an enthusiast, a perfect heroine of romance,
though he did not tell her so. She possibly considered him somewhat
dull and phlegmatic. Jack's notion of duty was to gain as much
professional knowledge as possible; to obey the orders he might receive,
and to carry them out to the best of his ability.

The midshipmen had no reason to complain of the breakfast spread before
them on their return to the house; meats and sw