The conversation ran chiefly on the new war about to be waged by the allies in Spain, the various routes likely to be taken by the several divisions, the probable points of concentration, and so forth. These were chiefly discussed by Baltasar and his three companions, all of whom had already seen much service against the French. The extreme youth of Quentin, and his total ignorance of the country, made them somewhat ignore his presence, notwithstanding the important despatch he had brought, the scarlet coat he wore, and that he was the herald of that great strife that was not to cease, even at the Hill of Toulouse! He sedulously avoided addressing or coming in contact in any way with the Padre Trevino, of whom he naturally had a proper horror, as an apostate priest who, exceeding his duty as a guerilla, became an assassin, and so coolly avowed his deadly design upon the father of Ribeaupierre. The youth, the fair complexion, the gentleness of voice and eye the donna saw in Quentin, together with certain unmistakeable signs of good breeding, when contrasted with the dark, fierce aspect and brusque bearing of those about her now, failed not to interest her deeply. The solitary mission on which he had come; the distance from his own country, of the exact situation of which, in her strange Spanish notions of geography (though passably educated for a Castilian), she had not the slightest idea, for in those points her countrymen are not much improved since Vasco de Lobiera wrote of the fair Olinda taking ship in Norway, and sailing to the King of England's "Island of Windsor;" the knowledge that Quentin was come to fight, it might be to _die_, for her beloved Spain, all served to present him in a most favourable light to her very lovely eyes, which rested on him so frequently that the sharp-sighted Trevino more than once bit his ugly nether lip with suppressed irritation, while Quentin felt his pulses quicken with pleasure, for the dark little beauty, in her picturesque national costume, was a delightful object to gaze upon; thus, a longer residence than he intended in that mountain puebla might perhaps have led we are not prepared to say to what species of mischief. As the wine circulated, and the conversation still turned on the war, Quentin ventured the remark--a perilous one amid such gentry--that he thought the scene he had recently witnessed was not favourable to the good success of the Spanish cause. Every brow loured as he said this, and the gentle donna looked uneasy. "Madre divina! you don't know what you talk about, senor," said Baltasar, gravely; "had you seen your countrymen, as I have mine, shot down in poor defenceless groups of thirty or forty at a time, on the open Prado of Madrid, you would think less harshly of us." "And, senor," urged Isidora, in her soft and musical tones, "the poor people of the city were forced to illuminate their houses in honour of the sacrifice. Was not such cruelty horrible?"