rawford's mind had broken out suddenly, as
he sat at the dinner-table of Senora Mercedes Paez, at the end of those
first days after his arrival in the city of Mexico. There were a number
of persons at the table, and at the head of it was Senora Paez herself.
She was shorter and stouter, but she was every ounce as stately and
imposing as was even Senora Tassara. In front of her sat one affair
which had, from the beginning of his visit in that house, made him feel
more at home than he might otherwise have done. He had become used to
it, and it seemed like an old friend. That Seville coffee-urn had
ornamented the table in the house at Vera Cruz, his first refuge after
he came ashore out of the destructive norther. It had winked at him from
a similar post of honor in the country-house out in Puebla, and Senora
Tassara had affectionately brought it with her to the residence of her
city cousin. She had said that she thought it would be safer here, even
if the city should be captured by those terrible robbers, the Americans.
They could not be intending to steal and melt up all the old silver in
Mexico.

"Why, Senor Carfora!" exclaimed Senorita Felicia, indignantly. "Did you
not know? Aunt Paez has piles and piles of books. They are up in the
library. If you wish to read them, she will let you go there. I had
forgotten that you know how to read. He may do it, may he not, Aunt
Mercedes?"

"Of course he may," replied the senora, "but it is a curious idea for a
boy of his age."

"Oh, thank you!" exclaimed Ned. "But what I'd like to have are some
books that tell about old Mexico and about the city of Tenochtitlan,
that stood here before the Spaniards came. I've been all around
everywhere. I've seen the swamps and the lakes and the walls and forts
and everything. The great cathedral--"

"That," interposed Senora Tassara, "stands on the very spot where an old
temple of the Aztec war-god stood. There were altars in it, where they
used to kill and burn hundreds and thousands of human sacrifices to
Huitzilopochtli, and there were altars to other gods."

"I can't exactly speak that name," said Ned, "but I want to know all
about him and the sacrifices. I want to learn, too, just how Cortes and
his men took the old city. I suppose that when the Americans come, it
will be a different kind of fight--more cannon."

"They won't get here at all," quietly remarked a military-looking old
gentleman sitting near the other end of the table. "