, who own estates
in the neighbourhood. Independently of their superior dimensions, glass
in the windows, painted doors and shutters, and the arms of the family
carved in stone above the entrance, perhaps a few valuable pictures by
the old Spanish masters, decorating the walls of the apartments,
distinguish these more aristocratic mansions, which, although spacious,
and of dignified aspect, frequently afford little more real comfort
than the cottages above which they tower.

It was early on an August morning, about a fortnight subsequently to the
rescue of Count Villabuena, that a man in an officer's uniform, and who,
to judge from the stripe of gold-lace on his coat cuff, held the rank of
major, knocked at the door of a house of the description last referred
to. The applicant for admission was about forty years of age, of middle
stature, broad-shouldered and powerful, and his countenance, the
features of which were regular, might have been called handsome but for
a peculiarly lowering and sullen expression. Apparently he had just come
off a journey; his boots and dress were covered with dust, his face was
unshaven, and he had the heated, jaded look of a man who has passed in
the saddle the hours usually allotted to repose.

"Is Count Villabuena quartered here?" said he to the servant who opened
the door.

"He is, Senor Comandante," replied the man.

The stranger entered the house, and was ushered into a large apartment
on the first floor. He had waited there but a few minutes, when the door
of an adjoining chamber opened, and Count Villabuena, wrapped in a
morning-gown, and seemingly just out of bed, made his appearance.

"Don Baltasar!" exclaimed the Count, in a tone of some surprise, on
beholding his early visitor.

"As you see, cousin," replied the new-comer; "and glad enough, I assure
you, to be at the end of his ride, although the bearer of no very
welcome news."

"Whence come you?" said the Count, "and what are the news you bring?"

"From Pampeluna, or at least from as near to it as I could venture. The
news I bring are bad enough. Yesterday morning, at this hour, Juan
Orrio, and the four other officers who were taken in the skirmish near
Echauri, were shot to death on the glacis of Pampeluna."

"Bad news indeed!" said the Count, starting, in visible perturbation,
from the chair on which he had seated himself. "Most unfortunate, just
at this time."

"At this or at any other time it would hardly be wel