“Well, Ruez, how is Captain Bezan, to-day? have you been to the barracks to inquire?” She said this in an assumed tone of indifference, but it was only assumed.

“How is he?” repeated Ruez, after turning a quick glance of his soft blue eyes upon his sister’s face, as though he would read her very soul.  Isabella felt his keen glance, and almost blushed.

“Yes, brother, pray, how is Captain Bezan, to-day? do you not know?”

“His life hangs by a mere thread,” continued the boy, sadly, resuming again his former position.  “The surgeon told me that his recovery was very doubtful.”

“Did he tell you that, Ruez?”

“Not those words, sister, but that which was equivalent to it, however.”

“He is worse, then, much worse?” she continued, in a hasty tone of voice.

“Not worse, sister,” replied Ruez.  “I did not say that he was worse, but the fever rages still, and unless that abates within a few hours, death must follow.”

Isabella Gonzales sat herself down at an open balcony and looked off on the distant country in silence, so long, that Ruez and the hound both fell asleep, and knew not that she at last left her seat.  The warmth and enervating influence of the atmosphere almost requires one to indulge in a siesta daily, in these low latitudes and sunny regions of the earth.

“He is dying, then,” said Isabella Gonzales, to herself, after having sought the silence and solitude of her own chamber, “dying and alone, far from any kindred voice or hand, or even friend, save those among his brothers in arms.  And yet how much do we owe to him!  He has saved all our lives-Ruez’s first, and then both father’s and mine; and in this last act of daring gallantry and bravery, he received his death wound.  Alas! how fearful it seems to me, this strange picture.  Would I could see and thank him once more-take from him any little commission that he might desire in his last moments to transmit to his distant home-for a sister, mother, or brother.  Would that I could smooth his pillow and bathe his fevered brow; I know he loves me, and these attentions would be so grateful to him-so delightful to me.  But alas! it would be considered a disgrace for me to visit him.”

Let the reader distinctly understand the feelings that actuated the heart of the lovely girl.  The idea of loving the wounded soldier had never entered the proud but now humbled Isabella’s thoughts.  Could such a thought have been by any means suggested to her, she would have spurned it at once; but it was the woman’s sympathy that she felt for one who would have doubtless sacrificed his life for her and hers; it was a simple act of justice she would have performed; and the pearly tear that now wet her cheek, was that of sympathy, and of sympathy alone.  Beautiful trait, how glorious thou art in all; but how doubly glorious in woman; because in her nature thou art most natural, and there thou findest the congenial associations necessary for thy full conception.