"WHY COMES HE NOT ?" "What delays Valerian?
What can be keeping him ?" These questions came from Adela Miranda, on the evening of that same day, standing in the door of her brother's house, with eyes bent along the road leading to Albuquerque.

Valerian was her brother's baptismal name, and it was about his absence she was anxious.
For this she had reasons--more than one.

Though still only a young girl, she quite understood the political situation of the Mexican Republic; at all times shifting, of late more critical than usual.

In her brother's confidence, she had been kept posted up in all that transpired in the capital, as also the district over which he held military command, and knew the danger of which he was himself apprehensive--every day drawing nigher and nigher.
Shortly after his leaving her she had heard shots, with a distant murmur of voices, in the direction of the town.

From the _azolea_, to which she had ascended, she could note these noises more distinctly, but fancied them to be salutes, vivas, and cheers.