CHAPTER VI.
"And ruder words will soon rush in To spread the breach that words begin; And eyes forget the gentle ray They wore in courtship's smiling day; And voices lose the tone that shed A tenderness round all they said." MOORE.
Inez de Garcia was an only child, and in San Antonio considered quite an heiress.

Her wealth consisted in broad lands, large flocks, and numerous herds, and these valuable possessions, combined with her beautiful face, rendered her the object of considerable attention.
Inez was endowed with quick perceptions, and a most indomitable will, which she never surrendered, except to accomplish some latent design; and none who looked into her beautiful eyes could suppose that beauty predominated over intellect.

She was subtile, and consciousness of her powers was seen in the haughty glance and contemptuous smile.

Her hand had been promised from infancy to her orphan cousin, Manuel Nevarro, whose possessions were nearly as extensive as her own.

Inez looked with indifference on her handsome cousin, but never objected till within a few weeks of her seventeenth birthday (the period appointed for her marriage), when she urged her father to break the engagement.
This he positively refused to do, but promising, at Father Mazzolin's suggestion, that she should have a few more months of freedom, she apparently acquiesced.