ng, my son, I hope you have slept well, and
are better," there was welling up in her heart a passionate ejaculation,
"O my glorious son! The saints have sent me in him the face of his
father! He is fit for a kingdom!"

The truth is, Felipe Moreno was not fit for a kingdom at all. If he had
been, he would not have been so ruled by his mother without ever finding
it out. But so far as mere physical beauty goes, there never was a
king born, whose face, stature, and bearing would set off a crown or a
throne, or any of the things of which the outside of royalty is made up,
better than would Felipe Moreno's. And it was true, as the Senora said,
whether the saints had anything to do with it or not, that he had the
face of his father. So strong a likeness is seldom seen. When Felipe
once, on the occasion of a grand celebration and procession, put on the
gold-wrought velvet mantle, gayly embroidered short breeches fastened at
the knee with red ribbons, and gold-and-silver-trimmed sombrero, which
his father had worn twenty-five years before, the Senora fainted at her
first look at him,--fainted and fell; and when she opened her eyes, and
saw the same splendid, gayly arrayed, dark-bearded man, bending over her
in distress, with words of endearment and alarm, she fainted again.

"Mother, mother mia," cried Felipe, "I will not wear them if it makes
you feel like this! Let me take them off. I will not go to their cursed
parade;" and he sprang to his feet, and began with trembling fingers to
unbuckle the sword-belt.

"No, no, Felipe," faintly cried the Senora, from the ground. "It is my
wish that you wear them;" and staggering to her feet, with a burst of
tears, she rebuckled the old sword-belt, which her fingers had so many
times--never unkissed--buckled, in the days when her husband had bade
her farewell and gone forth to the uncertain fates of war. "Wear
them!" she cried, with gathering fire in her tones, and her eyes dry
of tears,--"wear them, and let the American hounds see what a Mexican
officer and gentleman looked like before they had set their base,
usurping feet on our necks!" And she followed him to the gate, and stood
erect, bravely waving her handkerchief as he galloped off, till he was
out of sight. Then with a changed face and a bent head she crept slowly
to her room, locked herself in, fell on her knees before the Madonna at
the head of her bed, and spent the greater part of the day praying that
she might be forgiven