ese sides is twenty feet
in breadth, paved with tiles that have been worn into hollows by
innumerable lazy footsteps, mostly shoeless, for this side of the house
is frequented chiefly by the servants of the place, who are Mexican
Indians. Ancient wooden settles are bolted to the walls; from hooks hang
Indian baskets of bright colors; in one corner are stretched raw hides,
which serve as beds. Small brown children, half naked, trot, clamber,
and crawl about. Black-haired, swarthy women squat on the tiled floor,
pursuing their vocations, or, often, doing nothing at all beyond
continuing a placid organic existence. Boys and men saunter in and out
of the court-yard, chatting or calling in their musical patois; once
in a while there is a thud and clatter of hoofs, a rider arriving or
departing. It is an entertaining scene, charming in its monotony of
small changes and evolutions; you can sit watching it in a half-doze for
twenty years at a stretch, and it may seem only as many minutes, or vice
versa.

Most of the rooms in the wings are used for the kitchens and other
servants' quarters; but one large chamber is devoted to a special
purpose of the general's own: it is a museum; the Curiosity-Room, he
calls it. It is lighted by two windows opening on opposite sides, one
on the court-yard, the other on an orange grove at the south end of the
house. Besides being, in itself, a cool and pleasant spot, it is full
of interest to any one who cares about the relics and antiquities of an
ancient and vanishing race, concerning whom little is or ever will be
known. There are two students in it at this moment; though whether they
are studying antiquities is another matter. Let us give ear to their
discourse and be instructed.

"But this was made for you to wear, Miss Trednoke. Try it. It fits you
perfectly, you see. There can be no doubt about your being a princess,
now!"

"I sometimes feel it,--here!" she said, putting her hand on her bosom.
She was looking at him as she said it, but her eyes, instead of any
longer meeting his, seemed to turn their regard inward, and to traverse
strange regions, not of this world. "I see some one who is myself,
though I can never have been she: she is surrounded with brightness, and
people not like ours; she thinks of things that I have never known. It
is the memory of a dream, I suppose," she added, in another tone.

"Heredity is a queer thing. You may be Aztecan over again, in mind and
temperamen