“In an hour of mercy may the merciful One remember Dare Grant! I will pray for his peace as long as I live. If he had left Juan--if he had come back alone--I think indeed I should have hated him.” “That was also the opinion of Antonia--she would never have loved him the same. I am sure she would not have married him.” “My good Antonia! Go bring her to me, Isabel. I want to comfort her. She has been so patient with me. I have felt it--felt it every minute; and I have been stupid and selfish, and have forgotten that she too was suffering.” The next day it was found impossible to move. The majority of the women had husbands with the army. They had left their wives, to secure everlasting freedom for their children; but, even if Houston was victorious, they might be wounded and need their help. To be near them in any case was the one thing about which they were positive. “We will not move another inch,” said a brave little Massachusetts woman, who had been the natural leader of this domestic Exodus; “we will rest ourselves a little here, and if the Mexicans want some extraordinary fighting they can have it; especially, if they come meddling with us or our children. My husband told me just to get out of reach of shot and shell and wait there till we heard of the victory, and I am for doing THAT, and no other thing.” Nearly two hundred women, bent upon their own way, are not to be taken any other way; and the few old men who had been sent to guide the party, and shoot what game was necessary for their support, surrendered at once to this feminine mutiny. Besides, the condition of the boys and girls between seven and fourteen was really a deplorable one. They were too old to be cared for as infants, and they had been obliged, with the strength of children, to accomplish the labor of men and women. Many were crippled in their feet, others were continually on the point of swooning. It was now the 20th of April. The Senora and her daughters had been six weeks with the American army, exposed to all the privations which such a life entailed. But the most obvious of these privations were, perhaps, those which were most easily borne. Women endure great calamities better than the little annoyances affecting those wants which are part and parcel of their sex or their caste. It was not the necessaries so much as the luxuries of life which the Senora missed--the changes of raiment--the privacy--the quiet--the regularity of events. During the whole of the 20th, there was almost a Sabbath stillness. It was a warm, balmy day. The wearied children were under the wagons and under the trees, sleeping the dead sleep of extreme exhaustion. The mothers, wherever it was possible, slept also. The guides were a little apart, listening and smoking. If they spoke, it was only in monosyllables. Rest was so much more needed than food that little or no attempt was made to cook until near sundown.