he had the
first claim upon my time, I should examine the Aztec material and report
in a day or two. As I knew I had little chance in the hands of these two
incomprehensibles together, I begged him not to call his wife, but
to convey my adieus to her, and, in spite of his embraces and
protestations, I managed to get out of the room. But I had scarcely
reached the front door when I heard Enriquez's voice and his bounding
step on the stairs. In another moment his arm was round my neck.

"You must return on the instant! Mother of God! I haf forget, SHE haf
forget, WE all haf forget! But you have not seen him!"

"Seen whom?"

"El nino, the baby! You comprehend, pig! The criaturica, the leetle
child of ourselfs!"

"The baby?" I said confusedly. "IS there--is there a BABY?"

"You hear him?" said Enriquez, sending an appealing voice upward. "You
hear him, Urania? You comprehend. This beast of a leetle brother demands
if there ees one!"

"I beg your pardon," I said, hurriedly reascending the stairs. On the
landing I met Mrs. Saltillo, but as calm, composed, and precise as
her husband was extravagant and vehement. "It was an oversight of
Enriquez's," she said quietly, reentering the room with us; "and was all
the more strange, as the child was in the room with you all the time."

She pointed to the corner of the wall, where hung what I had believed
to be an old Indian relic. To my consternation, it WAS a bark
"papoose-case," occupied by a LIVING child, swathed and bandaged after
the approved Indian fashion. It was asleep, I believe, but it opened a
pair of bright huckleberry eyes, set in the smallest of features, that
were like those of a carved ivory idol, and uttered a "coo" at the sound
of its mother's voice. She stood on one side with unruffled composure,
while Enriquez threw himself into an attitude before it, with clasped
hands, as if it had been an image of the Holy Child. For myself, I was
too astounded to speak; luckily, my confusion was attributed to the
inexperience of a bachelor.

"I have adopted," said Mrs. Saltillo, with the faintest touch of
maternal pride in her manner, "what I am convinced is the only natural
and hygienic mode of treating the human child. It may be said to be
a reversion to the aborigine, but I have yet to learn that it is not
superior to our civilized custom. By these bandages the limbs of the
infant are kept in proper position until they are strong enough to
support the body, and suc