had been relieved at the governor's palace and the city walls, and
now the steady martial tread to the tap of the drum rang along the
streets of Havana, as the guard once more sought their barracks in
the Plaza des Armes.

The pretty senoritas sat at their grated windows, nearly on a level
with the street, and chatted through the bars, not unlike prisoners,
to those gallants who paused to address them. And now a steady line
of pedestrians turned their way to the garden that fronts the
governor's palace, where they might listen to the music of the band,
nightly poured forth here to rich and poor.

At this peculiar hour there was a small party walking in the broad
and very private walk that skirts the seaward side of the city,
nearly opposite the Moro, and known as the Plato. It is the only
hour in which a lady can appear outside the walls of her dwelling on
foot in this queer and picturesque capital, and then only in the
Plaza, opposite to the palace, or in some secluded and private walk
like the Plato. Such is Creole and Spanish etiquette.

The party referred to consisted of a fine looking old Spanish don, a
lady who seemed to be his daughter, a little boy of some twelve or
thirteen years, who might perhaps be the lady's brother, and a
couple of gentlemen in undress military attire, yet bearing
sufficient tokens of rank to show them to be high in command. The
party was a gay though small one, and the lady seemed to be as
lively and talkative as the two gentlemen could desire, while they,
on their part, appeared most devoted to every syllable and gesture.

There was a slight air of hauteur in the lady's bearing; she seemed