"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 foretell what course he will take, cruel or otherwise, when he and his army return to fight with General Scott, on the road from the sea to this city. Go and read your letters, and then I will see you again." Felicia had to give him up, and away he went. The best place to read home letters seemed to him to be the library, and when he entered the dim old room, he half imagined that the man in armor nodded at him, and tried to say how d'ye do. After that, Ned almost forgot that he was in Mexico, while he devoured the news from home. It was a grand thing to learn, too, that the letters which he had feared would never get to New York had all been carefully delivered under the kindly care of the British consular system. He had never before felt quite so high an admiration for the British Empire as he acquired just then. "I'll do something good for the next Englishman I get hold of!" he declared, with energy, and then he sat still and stared around the room.