“And to get freedom you tread upon your mother’s heart. Let loose my hands. I am weary to death of this everlasting talk of freedom. I think indeed that the Americans know but two words: freedom and dollars. Ring for Rachela. She, at least, is faithful to me.” “Not till you kiss me, mother. Do not send me away unblessed and unloved. That is to doom me to misfortune. Mi madre, I beg this favor from you.” He had risen, but he still held her hands, and he was weeping as innocent young men are not ashamed to weep. If she had looked at him! Oh, if she had but once looked at his face, she could not have resisted its beauty, its sorrow, its imploration! But she would not look. She drew her hands angrily away from him. She turned her back upon her suppliant son and imperiously summoned Rachela. “Good-by, mi madre.” “Good-by, mi madre!” She would not turn to him, or answer him a word. “Mi madre, here comes Rachela! Say ‘God bless you, Juan.’ It is my last word, sweet mother!” She neither moved nor spoke. The next moment Rachela entered, and the wretched woman abandoned herself to her care with vehement sobs and complainings. Jack was inexpressibly sorrowful. He went into the garden, hoping in its silence and solitude to find some relief. He loved his mother with his strongest affection. Every one of her sobs wrung his heart. Was it right to wound and disobey her for the sake of--freedom? Mother was a certain good; freedom only a glorious promise. Mother was a living fact; freedom an intangible idea. Ah, but men have always fought more passionately for ideas than for facts! Tyrants are safe while they touch only silver and gold; but when they try to bind a man’s ideals--the freedom of his citizenship--the purity of his faith--he will die to preserve them in their integrity. Besides, freedom for every generation has but her hour. If that hour is not seized, no other may come for the men who have suffered it to pass. But mother would grow more loving as the days went by. And this was ever the end of Jack’s reasoning; for no man knows how deep the roots of his nature strike into his native land, until he sees her in the grasp of a tyrant, and hears her crying to him for deliverance. The struggle left the impress on his face. He passed a boundary in it. Certain boyish feelings and graces would never again be possible to him. He went into the house, weary, and longing for companionship that would comfort or strengthen him. Only Isabel was in the parlor. She appeared to be asleep among the sofa cushions, but she opened her eyes wide as he took a chair beside her. “I have been waiting to kiss you again, Juan; do you think this trouble will last very long?” “It will be over directly, Iza. Do not fret yourself about it, angel mio. The Americans are great fighters, and their quarrel is just. Well, then, it will be settled by the good God quickly.”