o, or between
one of them and some one else, I made my adieux--I will warrant the only
woman in her stocking feet who bowed for Mr. Tyler at the ball that
night!"

"Yes, so far as I know, Madam, you are the only lady who ever left the
East Room precisely so clad. And so you got into your own
carriage--alone--after a while? And so, when you were there you put on
the shoe which was left? And so Yturrio of Mexico got the other one--and
found nothing in it! And so, he wanted this one!"

"You come on," she said. "You have something more than a trace of
brain."

"And that other shoe, which _I_ got that night?"

Without a word she smoothed out a bit of paper which she removed from a
near-by desk, and handed it to me. "_This_ was in yours! As I said, in
my confusion I supposed you had it. You said I should go in a sack. I
suppose I did! I suppose I lost my head, somewhere! But certainly I
thought you had found the note and given it to Mr. Calhoun; else I
should have driven harder terms with him! I would drive harder terms
with you, now, were I not in such haste to learn the answer to my
question! Tell me, _were_ you married?"

"Is that answer worth more than Van Zandt?" I smiled.

"Yes," she answered, also smiling.

I spread the page upon the cloth before me; my eyes raced down the
lines. I did not make further reply to her.

"Madam," went on the communication, "say to your august friend Sir
Richard that we have reached the end of our endurance of these late
delays. The promises of the United States mean nothing. We can trust
neither Whig nor Democrat any longer. There is no one party in power,
nor will there be. There are two sections in America and there is no
nation, and Texas knows not where to go. We have offered to Mr. Tyler to
join the Union if the Union will allow us to join. We intend to reserve
our own lands and reserve the right to organize later into four or more
states, if our people shall so desire. But as a great state we will join
the Union if the Union will accept us. That must be seen.

"England now beseeches us not to enter the Union, but to stand apart,
either for independence or for alliance with Mexico and England. The
proposition has been made to us to divide into two governments, one free
and one slave. England has proposed to us to advance us moneys to pay
all our debts if we will agree to this. Settled by bold men from our
mother country, the republic, Texas has been averse to this. But now