“Of the story of Chiquita there is not much more to tell, _Señor_. When Juan was get back to the _hacienda_, she was still not know anybody. _El Medico_ say she have of the brain a bad sickness. She live, but she no more can see--she is blind! “And never has Chiquita remembered--_Gracios à Dios!_ “Not long was it before the _rancheria_ of the Salvias is go to ruin. They all go away, the _vaqueros_ and the women. La Bonita, she stay like the faithful dog till she die. And then was Chiquita alone--alone, till she have found Ramon.” Here the story-teller gazed tenderly toward the door of the herder’s cabin, where in the quiet shadows just within, sat a pathetic white-haired figure. “But what became of Juan?” I asked. There was a peculiar light in the Mexican’s eyes as he replied: “Long, long ago he die--that little Juan. It was well that he die, for when Ramon came, then was there no more need of Juan. Then, too, my poor Chiquita did not know, and why was it then that Juan should live?” A DEAD IDEAL A ROMANCE OF THE DISSECTING ROOM I had been practising medicine for some years, and had grown tired of the hard daily grind of the general practitioner. I longed for a vacation, but medicine is a hard task mistress and with the busy physician economy of time is so essential that his so-called “rest” is usually merely a change of work. I felt that it must be so with me, and resolved to hie me to some of the eastern centers of medical teaching and take a post graduate course in several special subjects. Polyclinics and post graduate schools being then unknown, I went to New York and matriculated at one of that city’s famous schools, one which had attained a high reputation for practical bedside instruction and abundant clinical material. It was with all the enthusiasm of a school boy, that I enrolled my name upon the college roster and settled down to earnest work in the hospital wards and dissecting rooms. As I was desirous of mingling with my classmates as much as possible, and was not averse to a certain degree of practical economy, I formed a combination with three undergraduates, who were recommended to me as desirable associates, and became a guest of a medical students’ boarding house--an establishment characterized by abundant opportunities for the study of entomology and the effects of prolonged fasting upon the human body, rather than by the abundance and variety of its larder. As was the custom among medical students, we clubbed together and occupied a large single room--none too elaborately furnished, but very comfortable withal, and made rather attractive by a large, old fashioned fireplace.