ing to change
the subject. "I've had a wonderful time. I've been travelling,
travelling, travelling, everywhere with the general."

"Tell me all about it!" she commanded him. "I want to know. It seems to
me as if I had been shut up here and had not seen anybody."

"Well, I can't tell it all just now," he said, "but when we left here we
hurried all the way to Oaxaca. Then we stayed there awhile, among his
own people, and nobody gave us any trouble. No, I mustn't forget one
thing, though. A band of those mountain robbers came one night, and we
had an awful fight with them--"

"Did you kill any of them?" she asked, hastily. "They all ought to be
killed. They are ready to murder anybody else."

"Well," said Ned, "we beat them, and ten of them were shot. I was firing
away all the while, but I don't know if I hit any of them. It was too
dark to tell. The rest of them got away. But I've hunted deer, and I
killed a good many of them. I shot a lynx, too, and a lot of other game.
There's the best kind of fishing on the general's estates. I like
fishing. Then we went south, to the Yucatan line, and I saw some queer
old ruins. After that, the general's business took him away up north of
Oaxaca, and I went with him, and I saw half the States of Mexico before
we finished the trip. I've seen the silver mines and Popocatepetl and
Istaccihuatl, and I don't care to ever see any higher mountains than
they are."

"I have seen Popocatepetl," she said, "and it almost made me have the
headache. They say it is full of sulphur, to make gunpowder with."

Before she could tell anything more about the possible uses of the tall,
old volcano, her mother reentered the parlor.

"Senor Carfora," she said, "Felicia will have to give you up. Here are
some letters for you that came while you were absent. You had better
read them now, for I cannot say how long it will be best for you to
remain here. Step this way a moment, if you will."

Ned followed her, all in a sudden whirl of excitement at the unexpected
prospect of hearing from his far-away home, but she still held his
promised envelopes in her own hand, while she said to him:

"My dear young friend, you know that Colonel Tassara is with his
regiment. He was in the thickest of the fight at Angostura. He was
wounded, but he hopes to recover soon, and we have not told Felicia. He
writes me that it was really a lost battle, and that the fall of Santa
Anna is surely coming, but that nobody can f