one, if his physician knows his case, as he pretends, he'll make a
die of it. He is a gallant fellow, that's a fact, and brave as he is
gallant. I may as well own the fact that's what makes me hate him
so! But he should not have crossed my path, and served to blight my
hopes, there's the rub. I like the man well enough as a soldier,
hang it. I'd like half the army to be just like him-they'd be
invincible; but he has crossed my interest, ay, my love; and if he
does get up again and crosses me with Isabella Gonzales, why
then-well, no matter, there are ways enough to remove the obstacle
from my path.

"By the way," he continued, after crossing and re-crossing the room
a few times, "what a riddle this Isabella Gonzales is; I wonder if
she has got any heart at all. Here am I, who have gone scathless
through the courts of beauty these many years, actually
caught-surprised at last; for I do love the girl; and yet how archly
she teazes me! Sometimes I think within myself that I am about to
win the goal, when drop goes the curtain, and she's as far away as
ever. How queenly she looks, nevertheless. I had much rather be
refused by such a woman, to my own mortification, than to succeed
with almost any other, if only for the pleasure of looking into
those eyes, and reading in silent language her poetical and ethereal
beauty-I might be happy but for this fellow, this Captain Bezan; he
troubles me. Though there's no danger of her loving him, yet he
seems to stand in my way, and to divert her fancy. Thank Heaven,
she's too proud to love one so humble."

Thus musing and talking aloud to himself, General Harero walked back
and forth, and back and forth again in his apartment, until his
orderly brought him the evening report of his division. A far