"I remember that before I went to Cordova there was a great quarrel between my father and my grandfather. I have seen my mother cry about it for an hour together, but I never knew what it was about. It must have been this affair, I suppose," answered Marcelino musingly. "How strange of my father! He is very liberal in his ideas, but he cannot see that we in our country have just the same rights that Spaniards have in Spain." Then Marcelino lay back wearily on his pillows, and a shade of sadness passed over his face. "I have let you talk too much," said Evaña; "and I should not have told you of this yet but that I thought you had heard before of Don Alfonso Miranda. Let me read to you; I have brought you another paper." So saying, Evaña drew another paper from the breast-pocket of his coat, and began reading it aloud to his sick friend, every now and then pausing to make comments and to add observations of his own. Marcelino listened dreamily with his eyes half closed, and a smile playing over his lips for some time, till his eyes closed altogether, and Evaña looking at him saw that he was asleep. For two hours Evaña sat in silence at the bedside of his friend, listening to his low, regular breathing, looking at him now and then and marking the ravages which sickness and pain had made upon his young face. As he looked an expression of pain came into his own face, he thought of the numbers of his own countrymen in the bloom of their youth, or in the pride of their manhood, who would be struck down even as his own friend here before the dream of his life could be accomplished, before the dominion of Spain could be cast off, and a republic of Argentines take its place among the nations of the world. Of his own life he recked nothing, he had calculated the probable cost of a struggle with Spain, the price of liberty would be counted down in the lives of men, and that his own life would be one of them he thought likely enough, for did not he seek his own place in the very van of the great movement. But that the friends of his youth, who would follow him in the blind generosity of their hearts, fighting for a liberty of which they could not know the value, should fall, that thought was painful to him, and fall they would, that he knew right well. So passed two hours; again the door opened, and a girl entered, bearing a tray with a basin of broth and some thin slices of bread on a plate. "Here is your broth," said Evaña, as Marcelino awoke at the sound of the opening door; "let us see if you will leave less of it than you did yesterday." "I don't intend to leave any of it to-day," replied Marcelino. "But first, Carlos, tell me, that daughter of Don Alfonso's you spoke of, what is she like?" "I have never seen her," replied Evaña. "I was at the Pajonales last summer, I must have met her there." "She has been there for the last four years."