ir native land. But these
passions passed away with the coming of peace; and the Maximilian
episode served to bring Mexico into somewhat closer relation with the
civilization of her northern border neighbor. Still the national
culture, if so it can be called, remained practically unaffected for
years after the founding of the republic; for the purely Spanish
families had been banished in large numbers, and the Maximilian rule was
too brief to effect a new Latin invasion.

But there was an invasion lowering upon the horizon of Mexico, though
foreseen perhaps by few, which was destined to prove most effectual in
influencing the future of the Mexican woman--the invasion of the
Anglo-American in peaceful guise, armed with scrip and not with stave,
and bearing the axe and spade in his hands. The wealth of Mexico began
to attract the attention of the citizens of her northern neighbor, and
they kindly hastened to relieve her of as much as she found at all
burdensome and they themselves decided the discomfort of that burden.
The typical American, the American _par excellence_, he of the United
States, invaded Mexico once more, though this time in search of dollars,
not glory; and under his influence, perhaps yet more under that of his
wife and daughters, the feminine civilization of Mexico lost its
individuality in its acceptance of standards which were unfitted to its
conditions and unacceptable to its traditions. The woman of Mexico
forgot her history and her very nature, and became, in the majority of
cases, a mere imitator of Anglo-Saxon and Gallic fashion and custom.
Once she smoked her dainty cigarette with entire nonchalance; now, even
though her English and North American sisters have found a charm in the
nicotian incense that is offered to the god of social converse, your
Mexican woman, having long since been told solemnly that "_Las
Americanas_ do not smoke," has thrown away her little roll of paper and
tobacco, and has become "proper" according to standards with which she
should have nothing in common. She has doffed her _rebozo_--that which
might have been termed the national garment of the Mexican woman--and
has accepted the less graceful and becoming garments of European
fashion. In all outer guise, she is steadfastly setting herself to
become a mere imitation, if not a caricature, of the belles of other
civilizations; but within she is still the child of the South, the
daughter of a race of Indians, dashed indeed