"What is that man saying to your mother?" he demanded. "She promise me to him when he come back; he go to join General Castro." "Benicia!" He glanced about. Altimira had left the house. Every one was too excited to notice them. He drew her across the hall and into the little sala, deserted since the startling news had come. "Benicia," he said hurriedly, "there is no time to be lost. You are such a butterfly I hardly know whether you love me or not." "I no am such butterfly as you think," said the girl, pathetically. "I often am very gay, for that is my spirit, señor; but I cry sometimes in the night." "Well, you are not to cry any more, my very darling first!" He took her in his arms and kissed her, and she did not box his ears. "I may be ordered off at any moment, and what may they not do with you while I am gone? So I have a plan! Marry me to-morrow!" "Ay! Señor!" "To-morrow. At your friend Blandina's house. The Hernandez like the Americans; in fact, as we all know, Tallant is in love with Blandina and the old people do not frown. They will let us marry there." "Ay! Cielo santo! What my mother say? She kill me!" "She will forgive you, no matter how angry she may be at first. She loves you--almost as much as I do." The girl withdrew from his arms and walked up and down the room. Her face was very pale, and she looked older. On one side of the room hung a large black cross, heavily mounted with gold. She leaned her face against it and burst into tears. "Ay, my home! My mother!" she cried under her breath. "How I can leave you? Ay, triste de mi!" She turned suddenly to Russell, whose face was as white as her own, and put to him the question which we have not yet answered. "What is this love?" she said rapidly. "I no can understand. I never feel before. Always I laugh when men say they love me; but I never laugh again. In my heart is something that shake me like a lion shake what it go to kill, and make me no care for my mother or my God--and you are a Protestant! I have love my mother like I have love that cross; and now a man come--a stranger! a conqueror! a Protestant! an American! And he twist my heart out with his hands! But I no can help. I love you and I go." X The next morning, Doña Eustaquia looked up from her desk as Benicia entered the room. "I am writing to Alvarado," she said. "I hope to be the first to tell him the glorious news. Ay! my child, go to thy altar and pray that the bandoleros may be driven wriggling from the land like snakes out of a burning field!" "But, mother, I thought you had learned to like the Gringos." "I like the Gringos well enough, but I hate their flag! Ay! I will pull it down with my own hands if Castro and Pico roll Stockton and Frémont in the dust!" "I am sorry for that, my mother, for I am going to marry an American to-day." Her mother laughed and glanced over the closely written page. "I am going to marry the Lieutenant Russell at Blandina's house this morning."