n brought her word that the young
Lieutenant was well again--and that his illness had been brief and
slight.

THE LAST

"Ay, but the years go quick!" said Mariquita, as she flapped a piece of
linen after taking it from the water. "I wonder do all towns sleep like
this. Who can believe that once it is so gay? The balls! The grand
caballeros! The serenades! The meriendas! No more! No more! Almost I
forget the excitement when the Americanos coming. I no am young any
more. Ay, yi!"

"Poor Faquita, she just died of old age," said a woman who had been
young with Mariquita, spreading an article of underwear on a bush. "Her
life just drop out like her teeth. No one of the old women that taught
us to wash is here now, Mariquita. We are the old ones now, and we teach
the young, ay, yi!"

"Well, it is a comfort that the great grow old like the low people. High
birth cannot keep the skin white and the body slim. Ay, look! Who can
think she is so beautiful before?"

A woman was coming down the road from the town. A woman, whom
passing years had browned, although leaving the fine strong features
uncoarsened. She was dressed simply in black, and wore a small American
bonnet. The figure had not lost the slimness of its youth, but the walk
was stiff and precise. The carriage evinced a determined will.

"Ay, who can think that once she sway like the tule!" said Mariquita,
with a sigh. "Well, when she come to-day I have some news. A letter, we
used to call it, dost thou remember, Brigida? Who care for the wash-tub
mail now? These Americanos never hear of it, and our people--triste de
mi--have no more the interest in anything."

"Tell us thy news," cried many voices. The older women had never lost
their interest in La Tulita. The younger ones had heard her story many
times, and rarely passed the wall before her house without looking at
the tall rose-bush which had all the pride of a young tree.

"No, you can hear when she come. She will come to-day. Six months ago
to-day she come. Ay, yi, to think she come once in six months all these
years! And never until to-day has the wash-tub mail a letter for her."

"Very strange she did not forget a Gringo and marry with a caballero,"
said one of the girls, scornfully. "They say the caballeros were so
beautiful, so magnificent. The Americans have all the money now, but she
been rich for a little while."

"All women are not alike. Sometimes I think she is more happy with the
memory." A