e his wife without risk of finding herself
the next day a widow. From summer to winter, from winter to spring, the
marriage was deferred, until at length the Count was about to withdraw
his opposition, well-founded though it was, and as Herrera felt it to
be, when the convention of Vergara took place, and removed the only
objection to the union of Rita and Luis. By that convention the war was
in fact concluded; for although Cabrera and other chiefs still waved the
banner of rebellion in the mountains of Catalonia and Arragon, there
could now be no doubt of their speedy subjugation. Deprived of the
support of Biscay and Navarre, and especially of the moral weight which
the adherence of those provinces gave to it, the Carlist rebellion was
virtually crushed.

On a bright autumnal afternoon of the year 1839, a travelling carriage,
of form and dimensions by no means incommodious, although its antique
construction, and the tawny tint of its yellow paint, might in London or
Vienna have subjected it to criticism, drove rapidly past the roadside
inn at which our story commenced. As it did so, a young man of military
appearance looked out of the window of the vehicle, and then turning his
head caught the eye of the coachman, who had also glanced at the inn,
and looked round at his master. Both smiled, although with a somewhat
melancholy expression; the driver touched his cap, cracked his long
whip, and the next instant the rapid gallop of the mules had taken the
carriage out of sight of the venta. The driver was Paco the muleteer,
the gentleman was General Herrera; and the sight of the inn, still
shaded by the huge tree in its front, and flanked by the broken wall,
had recalled to their recollection the famous game at ball played by
Paco and Velasquez, and which subsequently cost the one a horse and the
other a broken head. A ball of another description had since proved
fatal to the dragoon. He had fallen in one of the last actions of the
war, fighting gallantly by the side of the Mochuelo, whose fortunes he
had continued to share.

Accompanied by his bride and father-in-law, Herrera was on his way to
the villa near Tudela, now again the property of Count Villabuena.
Desirous to conciliate a nobleman of ancient name and high character,
and out of consideration for the great services which Herrera's zeal and
talents had rendered the cause, the queen's government had some time
previously restored to the Count his confiscated esta