"Good night, sweet sister," said I, once again pressing her fingers to my lips, and scarcely knowing when to relinquish them. A heavy sigh from the Friar, however, admonished me to hasten away; and I crept to my place, and lay down beside the now almost extinguished embers of our fire. "What a good thought was that of the pilgrimage," said I, as I drew my cloak around me; and I remembered that "Chico's" beads and his "book of offices" were still among my effects in the saddle-bags, and would greatly favor my assumption of the pious character. I then tried to recall some of my forgotten Latin. From this I reverted to thoughts of Donna Maria herself, and half wondered at the rapid strides we had accomplished in each other's confidence. At last I fell asleep, to dream of every incongruity and încoherency that ever haunted a diseased brain. Nunneries, with a crocodile for the Abbess, gave way to scenes in the Placers, where Nuns were gold-washing, and Friars riding down cataracts on caymans. From such pleasant realities a rough shake of Fra Miguel aroused me, as he cried, "When a man laughs so heartily in his sleep, he may chance to keep all the grave thoughts for his waking. Rise up, Señhor; the day is breaking. Let us profit by the cool hours to make our journey." As day was breaking we set out for Bexar, in the manner I had suggested; Donna Maria riding, the Friar and myself, one either side of her, on foot. Resolved upon winning, so far as might be, Fra Miguel's confidence, I addressed my conversation almost exclusively to him, rarely speaking a word to my fair companion, and then only upon the commonest questions of the way. As none of us had eaten since the day previous, nor was there any baiting-place till we reached Bexar, it was necessary to make the best of our way thither with all speed. The Fra knew the road perfectly, and by his skill in detecting the marks on trees, the position of certain rocks, and the course of the streams, gave me some insight into the acute qualities necessary for a prairie traveller. These themes, too, furnished the greater portion of our conversation, which, I am free to own, offered many a long interval of dreary silence. The Fra's thoughts dwelt gloomily on his late disaster, while Donna Maria and myself were condemned to the occasional exchange of a chance remark or some question about the road. Once or twice Fra Miguel questioned me on the subject of my own history; but ere I had proceeded any length in detailing my veracious narrative, an accidental word or remark would show that he was inattentive to what I was speaking, and only occupied by his own immediate reflections. Why, then, trouble myself with biographical inventions which failed to excite any interest? And so I relapsed into a silence plodding and moody as his own.