lonesome little tune distantly related to La Golondrina. Here it is:

"Thro' the uncolored years before I knew you
My days were just a string of wooden beads;
I told them dully off, a weary number ...
The silly cares, the foolish little needs.

"But now and evermore, because I've known you,
They've turned to precious pearls and limpid jade,
Clear amethysts as deep as seas eternal,
And heart's-blood rubies that will never fade.

"You never knew, and now you never will know;
Some joys are given; mine were only lent.
You see, I do not reckon years or distance;
Somewhere I know you _are_; I am content.

"I do not need your pity or your presence
To bridge the widening gulf of now and then;
It is enough for me to know my jewels
Can never turn to wooden beads again."

Of course, to be tiresomely exact, he's _always_ known her, and she
is entirely aware of his devotion, and he can reckon the time and
distance quite easily with the aid of a time-table, but, as the C.E.
says, "it listens well."

Off to La Ciudad de Mexico in the morning!

_Con todo mi corazon_,

JANE.

P.S. I might remark in passing that it's a perfectly good _corazon_
again, sane and sound and whole, and summons only dimly a memory of
New York....

_Mexico City._

SARAH, my dear, I've given up trying to date my letters. I've lost
count of time. We've been here for many golden days and silver
nights, in a land of warm eyes and soft words, where _peons_ take off
their _sombreros_ and step aside to let my Grace pass, and Murillo
beggar boys are named--"Florentino Buenaventura, awaiting your
commands!"

We sight-see so ardently that lazy little Lupe says she is "tired
until her bones!" and when she surrenders, we go on alone, the C.E.
and I. (Oh, yes, the Budders are still with us, but they are keener
on facts than fancies, and we deign but seldom to go with them and
improve our minds.) Yesterday, however, we consented to see Diaz'
model prison. My dear, after seeing how the people live at large, one
is convinced that here the wages of sin are sanitation and education.
I should think ex-convicts would be hugely in demand for all sorts of
positions. In the parlor we were fascinated with a display of the
skulls o