there, and she wished him never to enter their home and find her absent. Placing her arm affectionately about my waist, in her sweet Spanish she said to me: "In my country it is very sad for you, and you are far from your home and people, but do not forget I am your friend and sister; what I can do for you shall be done as for a sister." Her husband, Don Pancho, shared fully in her professions of friendship, and on one occasion, when a hundred miles away from the city, sent us a regalo (gift) of a donkey-load of grapes.
In striking personal contrast were my two most intimate friends among Mexican women. Pomposita, like Liberata, had the petite figure, the dainty feet and hands peculiar to the women of that country; but unlike her, she possessed the high cheek-bones, the straight black hair, the brown skin indicating her Indian origin, of which she was justly proud.
But there was no contrast in the exhibition of their devoted kindness and friendship. Both were equally ready to assist me in adapting myself to the strange order of things and to aid in my initiation into the mysteries of their peculiar household economies. In case of sickness it seemed worth while to suffer to be the object of such exquisite tenderness, and experience the unspeakable sweetness of their sisterly ministrations.
But the time came when an overwhelming affliction fell upon me, when the night with its countless stars and crescent moon told of no serene sphere where tears and grief are unknown. The shadows passed over my soul without a gleam to enlighten the gloom of the grave.
The oft-read promise to grief-stricken humanity, "Thy brother shall rise again," was powerless to console.
My sister Emma, the loveliest and most devoted of women, was suddenly called from this bright world in the summer bloom of her loving life, leaving four young and tender children, leaving all her relations and friends grief-stricken and myself in the depths of such anguish as only God and the good angels know. When we came into this world, it was in a large family of brothers who loved and petted the two wee girls with all the devotion of noble-hearted men. But
