Who can know the chaos of the human heart? The Marquis, who a moment before had been supremely happy at the mere idea of his release, now felt vexed and humiliated in knowing that Loreto so promptly replaced him. His pupils grew yellow, his nervous attack returned and this, without doubt, was all that prevented his hovering about Loreto’s house as a truly enamored swain and challenging Ledesma to the death. JUSTO SIERRA. [Illustration] Justo Sierra was born January 26, 1848, at Campeche, the capital city of the State of the same name. The son of a man known in the world of letters, he early showed himself interested in literary pursuits. Determining to follow the career of law, he was licensed to practice at the age of twenty-three. Chosen a member of the Chamber of Deputies, he promptly gained a reputation as an orator. He became one of the justices of the Supreme Court. At present he is Sub-Secretary of Public Instruction and has been connected with all recent progress in Mexican education. For some years he was professor of general history in the _Escuela Nacional Preparatoria_ (National Preparatory School). Among his works are _Cuentos románticos_ (Romantic Tales), _En Tierra Yankee_ (In Yankee Land), and _México y su evolución social_ (Mexico and its Social Evolution). In style Sierra is poetical and highly fantastic, with a strain of humor rare in Mexicans. Our selection is a complete story from _Cuentos románticos_. THE STORY OF STAREI: A LEGEND OF YELLOW FEVER. Examining a volume, pretentiously styled _Album de Viaje_ (Album of Travel), which lay amid the sympathetic dust, which time accumulates in a box of long-forgotten papers, I encountered what my kind readers are about to see. We were in the _diligencia_ coming from Vera Cruz, a German youth, Wilhelm S.--with flaxen hair and great, expressionless, blue eyes,--and myself. We had not well gained the summit of the Chiquihuite, when the storm burst upon us. The coach halted, in order not to expose itself to the dangers of the descent over slopes now converted into rivers. I neared my face to the window, raising the heavy leather curtain, which the wind was beating against the window-frame; it looked like night. Above us, the tempest, with its thousand black wings, beat against space; its electric bellowings, rumbled from the hills to the sea, and the lightning, like a gleaming sword tearing open the bosom of the clouds, revealed to us, within, the livid entrails of the storm. We were literally in the midst of a cataract, which, precipitating itself from the clouds, rebounded from the mountain summit, and rushed, with torrential fury, down the slopes. “I am drenched in oceans of perspiration,” said my companion to me in French, “and I have an oven inside of me.” “Go to sleep,” I replied, “and all this will pass,” and, joining example to counsel, I wrapped myself in my cloak and closed my eyes.