Scotland and Ireland. One of my ancestors was an
Irishman, and the Crawfords were from Scotland. It isn't as hot a
country as Spain is. You are a Mexican, not a Spaniard."

"So I am," she said, "and most of the Mexicans are Indians. We ought to
have more Spaniards, but we can't get them. Anyhow, we don't want too
many gringos to come in. They are all heretics, too."

Ned knew what she meant, and he hastened to tell her that his country
contained more church people of her religion than Mexico did, and he
added, to her great disgust:

"And our priests are a hundred times better than yours are. General
Zuroaga says so, and so does your father. I don't like your Mexican
priests. The general says he wishes they were all dead, and their
places filled by good, live men from Europe and the United States."

"Felicia," interrupted her mother, "you must not talk with Senor Carfora
about such things. What I wish is that we had the American common
schools all over our poor, ignorant country. Oh, dear! What if this
horrible war should prove to be really a blessing to us? As things look
now, we are to have another revolution within a year. More men will be
shot, just as they have been before, and nobody can see what the end is
to be."

It was now time for the noonday luncheon, and they went to the
dining-room, where Senora Paez herself was glad to see the foreign
journals and to know that Ned had letters from home.

Many things appeared to be settled, as far as he was concerned. At all
events, his mind was no longer to busy itself with wild plans for
squirming out from among the Aztecs and finding his way to the United
States. After luncheon he went up to the library again. At first it was
only to read his letters over and over, and then it was a kind of relief
to go to his books and try to forget everything else in going on with
his queer schooling. It was unlike any that his old schoolmates at the
North were having, and he caught himself wondering what kind of man it
might make of him. He could not tell, but he was to have yet another
lesson that day, and with it came a promise of a strange kind of
vacation.

It came to him in the evening, when he was so tired of books that he
preferred the company of Senorita Felicia, no matter what saucy or
overpatriotic things she might see fit to say to him. They were sitting
near one of the drawing-room windows, when Senora Paez came quietly
behind him and touched him on the shoulder.