simplicity of children, and when I bade her good night at the door of her state room, I felt sorry that our voyage, and likewise our companionship, was so near its end. I had learned that she was Senorita Carmen Castella, daughter of a wealthy Cuban planter, just returning to her home after finishing her education in America, and that she had two brothers in the army, both of them officers of high rank. Well, the remainder of the voyage, which for the most part I spent in her company, was all too quickly ended, and it was with a feeling of deep regret that I parted from her at Havana. But within an hour after I had reached my hotel I felt like hiring one of the lazy idlers on the portico to kick me all over the island. Hike the consummate idiot I was, I had entirely forgotten to ask where her home was, and I knew I could never hope to meet her again, except by chance, and that, in such troublous times, seemed little probable. One day several weeks after my arrival I was awakened from a siesta by loud voices outside the hotel. Quickly rising, I went down to ascertain the cause of the commotion, and found every one excited over the news of a skirmish which had taken place near Managua. Wishing to know the exact particulars, I donned my palm-leaf hat, mounted my donkey and set out on a slow trot for the south. I had passed Has Hajas, which is about half way to Managua, and was moving leisurely along, when I heard hoof beats behind me, and, turning, I saw a young man on a pony rap idly overhauling me. A few minutes later he cantered up beside me. “ Good-afternoon, seuor!” lie said in perfect Spanish. Good-afternoon!” I answered in the same language. My companion looked surprised when I spoke in his native tongue, but I only smiled at his expression of wonder. “ The senor is an American, is he not?” asked my fellow trav- “Yes,” I answered him, “but the American knows a little Spanish.” And then I proceeded to tell him as much of my history as I deemed he might wish to know. “So thesenor is a reporter,” he said when I had finished. ‘ ‘ May I ask his name ?’ ’ “ Certainly,” I assured him, for there was something in the The Free Lance. [March,
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers