ndly
superstitious than her Spanish sister, and she was more concerned with
outer guise in all matters of morality or religion. She would not for
the world miss her accustomed attendance at mass, but she did not fail
to recognize the opportunities offered by the ceremonial, with its
genuflections and its periods of rest, for the transmittal of notes of
amorous inspiration, and many was the _billet d'amour_ which was slipped
by a tiny hand into a broader palm as the respective owners thereof
bowed in apparently deep reverence at the elevation of the Host. Among
the higher classes, the Mexican senora and senorita were far less
educated and cultivated than their Spanish kindred; yet among the lower
classes--not the peons, but the shopkeeper class in the cities, the
small landholders in the country--education of a kind was further
advanced in Mexico than in Spain. Most interesting in certain ways,
though least individual of all, was this middle class, wearing as their
festal costume, "white embroidered gowns, with white satin shoes and
neat feet and ankles, _rebozos_, or bright shawls, thrown over their
heads;" while the peasants on the same occasions were dressed in "short
petticoats of two colors, generally scarlet and yellow, with thin satin
shoes and lace-trimmed chemises." Stockings, it may be noticed, are not
referred to in either case; sixty years ago they were not considered at
all _de rigueur_ in the costume of a Mexican woman of any but the very
highest class and, if we are to believe all travellers, not even
invariably among the senoritas themselves.

The Mexican woman of the dawn of the republic was a type--indefinite,
even elusive, amid the crowd of southern Latin nationalities, yet
possessing some distinctive traits of manner, custom, and nature, and by
these to be distinguished from her Italian, Spanish, or even South
American kinswomen. But the individuality which she possessed, never
strongly marked, soon began to fade before the incursion of a northern
culture, with its novel ideals, standards, and requisites. When the
United States was at war with Mexico, the type of the latter culture was
at its most distinctive stage; and, though there were not a few of the
women who were enamored of the methods of the northern invaders and
became _Ayankeados_, as sympathizers with the foe were contemptuously
termed, yet, as a rule, the women of Mexico proved true daughters of
Anahuac in their hatred of the enemy of the