eyes and set lips. The Señora's excitement was unmistakably that of exultant national pride.

Santa Anna and his staff-officers were in front. They passed too rapidly for individual notice, but it was a grand moving picture of handsome men in scarlet and gold-of graceful mangas and waving plumes, and brightcolored velvet capes; of high-mettled horses, and richly-adorned Mexican saddles, aqueras of black fur, and silver stirrups; of thousands of common soldiers, in a fine uniform of red and blue; with antique brazen helmets gleaming in the sun, and long lances, adorned with tri-colored streamers. They went past like a vivid, wonderful dream-like the vision of an army of medieval knights.

In a few minutes the tumult of the advancing army was increased tenfold by the clamor of the city pouring out to meet it. The clashing bells from the steeples, the shouting of the populace, the blare of trumpets and roll of drums, the lines of churchmen and officials in their grandest dresses, of citizens of every age, -the indescribable human murmur-altogether it was a scene whose sensuous splendor

obliterated for a time the capacity of impressionable natures to judge rightly.

But Antonia saw beyond all this brave show the ridges of red war, and a noble perversity of soul made her turn her senses inward. Then her eyes grew dim, and her heart rose in pitying prayer for that small band of heroes standing together for life and liberty in the grim Alamo. No pomp of war was theirs. They were isolated from all their fellows. They were surrounded by their enemies. No word. of sympathy could reach them. Yet she knew they would stand like lions at bay; that they would give life to its last drop for liberty; and rather than be less than freemen, they would prefer not to be at all.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FALL OF THE ALAMO.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave!
Who rush to glory or the grave."

"To all the sensual world proclaim :
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name."

"Gashed with honorable scars,
Low in Glory's lap they lie;
Though they fell, they fell like stars,

Streaming splendor through the sky."

HE passing-by of Santa Anna and the

THE

Mexican army, though it had been hourly expected for nearly three days, was an event which threw the Señora and her daughters into various conditions of mental excitement. They descended from the roof to the Señora's room, where they could move about and converse with more freedom. For the poor lady was quite unable to control her speech and actions, and was also much irritated by Antonia's more composed manner. She thought it was want of sympathy.

"How can you take things with such a blessed calmness," she asked, angrily. "But it is the way of the Americans, no doubt, who must have everything for prudence. Sensible! Sensible! Sensible! that is the tune they are forever playing, and you dance to it like a miracle."

"My dear mother, can we do any good by exclaiming and weeping?"

Holy Virgin! Perhaps not; but to have a little human nature is more agreeable to those who are yet on the earth side of purgatory."

66

'Mi madre," said Isabel, "Antonia is our good angel. She thinks for us, and plans for us, and even now has everything ready for us move at a moment's notice. Our good angels have to be sensible and prudent, madre."

to

"To move at a moment's notice! Virgin of Guadalupe! where shall we go to? Could my blessed father and mother see me in this prison, this very vault, I assure you they would be unhappy even among the angels."

Mother, there are hundreds of women today in Texas who would think this house a palace of comfort and safety.'

Is that my fault?

"Saints and angels! Does it make my condition more endurable ? Ah, my children, I have seen great armies come into San Antonio, and always before I have been able to make a little pleasure to myself out of the event. For the Mexicans are not blood-thirsty, though they are very warlike. When Bravo was here, what balls, what bull-fights, what visiting among the ladies! Indeed there was so much to tell, the tertulia was as necessary as the dinner. To be sure, the Mexicans are not barbarians; they made a war that had some refinement. But the Americans! They are savages. With them it is fight, fight, fight, and if we try to be agreeable, as we were to that outrageous Sam Houston, they say thank you, madam, and go on thinking their own cruel thoughts. I wonder the gentle God permits that such men live."

"Dear mother, refinement in war is not possible. Nothing can make it otherwise than brutal and bloody."

"Antonia, allow that I, who am your mother, should know what I have simply seen

with my eyes. Salcedo, Bravo, Martinez,