Antonia was quite ready to echo her delight. Housekeeping and homemaking, in all its ways, was her lovable talent. It was really Antonia who saw all the plans and the desires of the Senora thoroughly carried out. It was her clever fingers and natural taste which gave to every room that air of comfort and refinement which all felt and admired, but which seemed to elude their power to imitate. On the fourth of July the doctor and his family ate together their first dinner in their renovated home. The day was one that he never forgot, and he was glad to link it with a domestic occurrence so happy and so fortunate. Sometimes silently, sometimes with a few words to his boys, he had always, on this festival, drank his glass of fine Xeres to the honor and glory of the land he loved. This day he spoke her name proudly. He recalled the wonders of her past progress; he anticipated the blessings which she would bring to Texas; he said, as he lifted the glass in his hand, and let the happy tears flow down his browned and thinned face: “My wife and daughters, I believe I shall live to see the lone star set in the glorious assemblage of her sister stars! I shall live to say, I dwell in San Antonio, which is the loveliest city in the loveliest State of the American Union. For, dear ones, I was born an American citizen, and I ask this favor of God, that I may also die an American citizen.” “MI ROBERTO, when you die I shall not long survive you. And now that the house is made so beautiful! With so much new furniture! How can you speak of dying?” “And, my dear father, remember how you have toiled and suffered for THE INDEPENDENCE OF TEXAS.” “Because, Antonia, I would have Texas go free into a union of free States. This was the hope of Houston. ‘We can have help,’ he often said to his little army; ‘a word will call help from Nacogdoches,--but we will emancipate ourselves. If we go into the American States, we will go as equals; we will go as men who have won the right to say: LET US DWELL UNDER THE SAME FLAG, FOR WE ARE BROTHERS!’” CHAPTER XVIII. UNDER ONE FLAG. “And through thee I believe In the noble and great, who are gone.” “Yes! I believe that there lived Others like thee in the past. Not like the men of the crowd. Who all around me to-day, Bluster, or cringe, and make life Hideous, and arid, and vile, But souls temper’d with fire, Fervent, heroic, and good; Helpers, and friends of mankind.” --ARNOLD. “Our armor now may rust, our idle scimitars Hang by our sides for ornament, not use. Children shall beat our atabals and drums; And all the noisy trades of war no more Shall wake the peaceful morn.” --DRYDEN.