it,
and their brilliant sallies and sparkling repartees, were the theme of
universal admiration.

The princess Atlacan was always attended by a very prudent, watchful,
anxious chaperone, of a fair exterior, and pleasing manners, who had
passed the meridian of life, and begun to wane into the cool of its
evening. She had also a brother, Maxtli, considerably older than
herself, who, from a two-fold motive, seemed to delight in disappointing
her expectations, and thwarting her plans. He was a cold, mercenary,
selfish man, who sought only his own aggrandizement. The princess was a
special favorite of her father, who was a prince of the highest rank,
and nearly related to the reigning king of Tezcuco. She had already
received many substantial proofs of parental partiality, which her
avaricious brother would fain have claimed for himself. Her brilliant
qualities and growing influence made her an object of jealousy, as
seeming to stand in the way of his own preferment. He had used every
exertion to dispose of her in marriage to some of her numerous suitors,
and had particularly advocated the cause of a wealthy young merchant of
Cholula, who rejoiced in the euphonous name of Xitentloxiltlitl, from
whom Maxtli had received large presents of gold and jewels.

Atlacan despised the merchant, who fondly imagined that his gold could
purchase any jewel in the realm. She would not listen to his proposals.
It was not pride of family, for in Anahuac, under the Aztec dynasty, the
merchant was a man of note, scarcely inferior to the proudest noble. But
the merchant was _only_ a merchant, a man of one idea, and that was
gold, without refinement, without sentiment, without heart, like the
majority of the same class of mere money mongers all the world over.

Maxtli was enraged by his sister's refusal of this alliance, which, if
it had been consummated, he would have made subservient to his own
interests. He determined, from mere revenge, to throw obstacles in the
way of her alliance with the gifted prince of Tlacopan. The annoyances
he invented, and the frequent prudential interposition of her cautious
chaperone, who was in the pay of Maxtli, made her position rather a
difficult one, and often put her disposition to the severest test. It
chanced, one lovely evening, that the lovers had stolen a march upon
both their tormentors, and found, in the royal gardens, a few moments of
that unwatched uninterrupted conference, which only those in the