_On the Train to Guanajuato._

Sally, she came running to meet me and flung herself into my arms!

The sister says she's never done that to any one before, and she told me the child had talked of me constantly. They're going to let me take her out for a whole day when we come back. She called "_Hasta la vista!_"--and threw me a kiss. She has quite wiped out the lizard and the _insurrecto_.

_Later._

This is the most fascinating place yet! I'm glad the C.E. lives here, rather than in the cloying prettiness of the _tierra caliente_. It's great fun, arriving at a new place after dark. The town is high in the hills above the station and we came up in a mule car, rattling through the twisting, narrow streets. I sat near the driver, only his soft, bright eyes showing between his high-wrapped _serape_ and his low-drawn _sombrero_, and he told me that his mules were named Constantino and The Pine Tree, faithful animals both of whom he tenderly loved. The few pedestrians scuttled into doorways or flattened themselves against the walls as we caromed past, and from time to time he blew a deafening blast on a crumpled horn.

We stepped from the car straight into the office of the hotel, and then the C.E. and I set out with Lupe to escort her to her uncle's house, but at the first dark turning she gave a smothered little scream and melted into the arms of a dusky cavalier. Emilio, when he could spare the time to be introduced, proved something of a landscape,--large for a Mexican, very much the patrician with his slim hands and feet and correct Castilian manner. Guanajuato is rather old-fashioned and he wears the high cla.s.s, native costume, and when Lupe is at home here, she always wears a _reboso_ instead of a hat.

He is the son of so many revolutions, it must make him dizzy to remember them, but I like him and I mean to help him win his pearl maiden. He discreetly left us before we reached Lupe's house and delivered her over to a very impressive Blue-beardish sort of person who was very gracious to us and asked me to visit Lupe. I shall,--it fits in perfectly with my plans! I go there to-morrow.

Meanwhile, I go to sleep!

Drowsily,

JANE.

_At Senor Don Diego's Palacio._

Sally, _mia_, how you'd adore this house! The floors are of dull-red tiles and they are ma.s.saged three times a day, and the whole thing is medieval in flavor,--a flock of velvet-voiced, dove-eyed servants who adore Lupe and are pledged to her cause. Old Cristina, who was her mother's nurse, is to be our stoutest ally.

Every night for an hour Emilio stands under her balcony "playing the bear." Lupe, her face shrouded in her _reboso_, leans over and whispers. I hover in the background like _Juliet's_ nurse. Afterward the C.E., having ridden in from his mine, comes for me, and we sally forth in the night like the Caliph and walk slowly up and down the Street of Sad Children, where the music comes daintily to us, filtered through the trees. Sometimes "Emily," as the C.E. wickedly calls him, joins us, to talk of his two loves,--Lupe, and Mexico.

Sally, never laugh again at the Mexican revolutions,--they're not funny, only pitiful.

My chief task now is to infuse a quality of hope and--_ginger_--into these little lovers. Sometimes their att.i.tude of _Dios no lo quiso_--heaven wills otherwise--makes me want to shake them, but slowly and surely I'm rousing them to action.

To-day we visited the prison here ... not the show model of Mexico City. This one is a hold-over from the Dark Ages. Young and old, gentle and simple, murderers and thieving children--all herded in together. In the huge court, before pillars with chains, a _peon_ was mopping up some dark stains.... Ugh! This is the broken heart of Mexico where tears and blood are brewing.

JANE.

_One Momentous Morning!_

All our little plans are perfected, Sally! We have to act quickly for Lupe's Tio Diego is more irate than usual, and "Emily's" papa languishes in prison, and there is a plot on foot to rescue him and make him Governor or something.

The Budders find the situation singularly lacking in thrill, and feel they would enjoy the safe and uneventful streets of San Francisco, and we start north day after to-morrow night. They are interested in my pretty _novios_ and will timidly help us.

It is all very simple. In the afternoon Lupe and I will stroll to the little church where she was baptized and where the gentle old priest is a friend of "Emily's" family. Emilio and the C.E. will be waiting.

Two of us are expeditiously wed. Lupe and I stroll back alone, halting to take a cup of chocolate with cinnamon in the _dulceria_; dine sedately with Tio Diego. Then I, reminding him that I am about to return to the States with my relatives, take farewell of him, thanking him (feeling a good deal of the viper that bites the hand that feeds it) for his hospitality. Lupe and I then repair to her rooms for a last chat. Presently Emilio and the C.E. arrive beneath the balcony. I emerge, join the C.E., and go briskly with him through the dusk to the street car and thence to the station where the Budders are waiting and leave for Silao on the nine-o'clock train.

Only, as the intelligent reader will have gathered, it will be Lupe who melts into the distance in my frock and cloak, with my thickest chiffon veil over her face, and Emilio who strides at her side in the C.E.'s suit and overcoat and hat and the big, dark goggles he's been diligently wearing lately, and a scarf about his neck against the menace of the night air, while the C.E. in actuality, in _caballero_ costume, gazes adoringly up at me on Lupe's _Juliet_ balcony! Rather neat, what?

We hold the pose, the C.E. and I, until we hear the heartening whistle of the train, when he slips away to change his clothes and I, escorted by old Cristina, go back to the hotel and follow the Budders to Guadalajara in the morning. I don't see how it can possibly fail.

Emilio's family owns large _ranchos_ up in Durango, where the elopers will be quite safe in a mountain fastness, and they will arrive there by craft, not buying through tickets, doubling now and then.

This is much more fun than eloping myself!

Excitedly,

JANE.

P.S. Speaking of which, the C.E. thinks it high time his case came up for hearing, and I've promised to give it serious consideration as soon as E. and L. are on their train. He had a quaint idea that the old priest might as well make it a double wedding!

_The Next Night._

Only think, Sally dear, this time to-morrow night it will all be accomplished! I've never been so thrilled in all my days.

And there's another reason for it beside my p.u.s.s.y willow maid's romance! (No, not that! Not yet, at any rate!) It was this evening, early, when she and I were walking, and they were playing _La Golondrina_. Lupe was silent, deep in her own rosy thoughts. We pa.s.sed the entrance to the "Street of Sad Children" and the name and the mournful magic of the music conjured up Dolores Tristeza for me, and the thought that I should soon see her again, but only to say good-by.

Then, quite suddenly and serenely, with no bothering doubts or "if's," I knew. I knew the thing I am going to do. I'm going to take her, to have her and keep her always. I'm twenty-eight years old, sound body and sane mind, with a steadily fattening income; I defy them to say I'm not the fittest adopter they ever saw. I know she'll want to come with me, and I know I couldn't leave Mexico heart-whole without her. Just as I arrived at this satisfying conclusion I glanced up; we were pa.s.sing a little _pulqueria_ whose name--painted gorgeously--was "The Orphan's Tear!" Wasn't that fitting?

I can't wait to see her and tell her!

JANE.

_The Afternoon._

SALLY DEAREST,

We are just home from the wedding and I wish you could see Lupe's dewy-eyed joy. I ache with tenderness for her. I know now why mothers always weep at weddings--I very nearly did myself, and I know I shall in ten years or so, when I see my Dolores Tristeza, standing like that, star-eyed, quivering-lipped.

When she slips away in the dusk to-night I shall put a period to my thought of Maria de Guadalupe Rosalia Merced Castello. I want to keep this fragrant memory of her.

"Yet, ah, that spring should vanish with the rose!

That youth's sweet-scented ma.n.u.script should close!"

I refuse to fancy my p.u.s.s.y-willow girl, my pearl maiden, in ten years, with a mustache and no corsets and eight weak-coffee-colored babies! _Adios, Lupe mia!_ Go with G.o.d!

Everything is in readiness. The dear old Budders, trembling with excitement, will be waiting at the train. As for me--as for my own little affair--I'm pushing that away, until my _novios_ are safe.

I'm pushing away that moment on the balcony, when we hear the train whistle. Sally, I don't _know_! This lovely, lazy, ardent land works moon magic on staid professional women!

Mistily,

JANE.

_Guadalajara, Two Days Later._

SALLY DEAREST,

It was mean to make you wait for the next thrilling installment of my Mexican best-seller, but this is the first moment when I've thought I could put down, coherently and cohesively, what happened. Happened is a palely inadequate word;--burst,--exploded--erupted, would be better!