WITH her packet of love-letters in

her hand, Alegria returned to the roof-Alegria Peralta, the band-master's daughter, who had committed the error of loving above her. She should have known better than to imagine that she would ever be received into a family of hat, she who was of shawl.

Such distinctions are not to be ignored, for Mexico is the land of resignation. The females of a family of shawl-de tápalo-do not aspire to decorate their heads with millinery, for the excellent reason that God has not assigned them to the caste de sombrero. Their consolation is that they may look down upon those de rebozo. No maid or matron of shawl would demean her respectable shoulders with the rebozo, -it is woven long and narrow, and is capable of being draped in a variety of graceful and significant ways; -but, contrariwise, young ladies of hat, authentic señoritas, to whom the mere contact of a shawl would impart "flesh of chicken," delight to dignify the national investment by wearing it coquettishly at country feasts. Persons of rebozo-one never speaks of "families" so far down the social scale-are the women of petty tradespeople, servants, artisans. They, in their turn, have consolation.

As for the family of Jesús María Ixtlan, who had taught Alegria Peralta to love him, it was even more than of hat, as Doña Rita Azpe de Ixtlan had just reminded the young woman, in the course of the long and convincing speech whereby she had prevailed upon her to surrender her lover's letters and her own hopesmore than of hat, for by warrant of antiquity and inveterate usage it was of carriage.

Doña Rita, the mother of Jesús María, was waiting for Alegria on the roof of the populous "house of neighborhood" in which Peralta, the band-master, made his home. The girl had escorted her elegant visitor to the roof because it was quieter there than in the Peralta vivienda in the second patio, and was mercifully secluded. She foreboded humiliation from this unannounced and clandestine visit. Now that she had been brought to believe the incredible, that Jesús María had bent like grass beneath the wind of tradition, and that all was over, she bore herself remarkably well. Doña Rita was pleased to see her approach with a light step, holding her head proudly, although the blood had gone from her cheeks, leaving them the color of burned milk. She was a tall girl, slim and square-shouldered, not con

sidered handsome. Her eyebrows were too thick, her mouth was too large, and her temples and jaws were veiled with a fine, bluish down, shading into the line of her hair. However, her nose was delicately aquiline, and her eyes were of the type most admired in Mexico-very long and oblique, shadowed with heavy lashes; the irises were the color of cognac. There was a legend among the neighbors that she was talented; it was certain that she had a peculiar habit of pressing her hands to her temples.

She made that identical gesture now as she resigned her packet of letters and looked out over the flat roofs of the city, and something in the curve of her throat recalled to Doña Rita the memory of a young stag she had once seen at the edge of a forest. She felt sorry for the girl and made her a particularly gracious speech, praising her for her excellent sense, giving her a multitude of good wishes, and promising to commend her in her prayers. Then, leaving her on the roof, she slowly descended the stone steps, delighted with the reward of her intrepidity. She to have ventured alone and on foot into a neighborhood of shawl, and so to have saved her darling son! And the day, how well chosen! A baptism was being celebrated in the interior patio; the air thrilled with a tinkling of laughter and mandolins, and the rest of the house was deserted. She passed the porter's room and the charcoal-seller's without being seen. How God was on her side! It was true that she had lied to the girl, but with a motive how noble! And even although Jesús María had not delegated her to do this thing, on the contrary had not known of her discovery of his love, she felt assured that she could easily have brought him to the proper frame of mind if she had deemed it politic to take him into her confidence before dealing with his inamorata. Now, with the help of God and a little diplomacy, she could manage him admirably. How fortunate that an anonymous letter should have warned her of that folly in time for her to interfere!

When she reached the street, some men were lifting a woman from the pavement. Doña Rita was turning away, supposing it a case of drunkenness, when she heard one say, "It is Alegria Peralta."

She

almost cried out: "It cannot be! Alegria Peralta is on the roof!" but her throat suddenly dried. The dress looked familiar. They were carrying her into the porter's room. Doña Rita wished to follow, to find out whether she was hurt much, to proffer aid, and above all to ask her how she had happened to fall; but caution impelled her to walk away from that neighborhood as fast as she could. She entered the first church on her way, and prayed for a long time. Then she began to read the letters her son had written to that girl.

They made her tremble. She had lived until that hour to learn that a young woman of shawl might be capable of moving an Ixtlan to woo her with all the delicacy of his caste, and a little more; to learn that her studious, docile Jesús María was a poet. All her maternity, all the sex in her, vibrated to the passion of his phrases. Dried flowers slipped into her agitated hands, and perished there; and their particles drifted away in the gloom like ghosts of dead kisses. She wept. Why, why had she never divined and absorbed her son's heart, she who had adored him? She read on through later letters, born of ripened sympathies of heart and mind, and then through letters which told her that Jesús María was infected with that most dangerous of distempers, patriotism. Her child to be playing fearlessly with scorpions masquerading under specious titles-Reforma Electoral, Cumplimiento de Garantías Constitucionales, Civilización para los Peónes, Méjico para los Mejicanos! He, son of a general immortalized equestrianly in bronze, student at the military college, sole surviving hope of a line the perspective of which vanished among the lords and priests of an extinct civilization-he, Jesús María Ixtlan y Azpe, to be imperiling his future by concerning himself about the base fortunes of los enredados!

Last, although far from least in the table of social precedence, consolation of the unregarded persons of rebozo (los enredados are literally "the wrappedups"). They do not live in cities, these, but a few straggle in from neighboring pueblos with great baskets of country produce, which they sing in the patios in haunting, minor cadences. They are pleasing to the artist eye, and are full of