silence in the low murmuring tones peculiar to the Indian
race.

"Ixtla has heard the discourse of the Cura Hippolito of Tlascala. It was
no _cuento de fraile_.[10] Ixtla has often heard the same from the priests
of his own race. Will my brothers hear the words of the Cura Hippolito?"

There was an unanimous sign of assent from the Indians.

"He who hath ears to hear, let him hear! So said the Cura Hippolito, and
so saith Ixtla. When Don Abraham, a most excellent caballero, greatly
esteemed both by the Holy Virgin of Guadalupe and by Mexicotl"----

The speaker paused, for his cigar was going out. We take advantage of the
pause, to inform our readers that the Don Abraham who was thus strangely,
and, according to the custom of the Mexican Indian priests, brought into
the society of Mexicotl and the Virgin of Guadalupe, was no other than the
Jewish patriarch.

"When Don Abraham," continued the Indian, "felt his end approaching, he
called his son, Don Isaac, and bequeathed to him all his possessions;
after which he died in the Lord. This Don Isaac was, as the senores have
perhaps heard, a God-fearing man, who had two sons, Don Esau and Don Jago.
Of these, your worships must understand, Don Esau was the elder, or
first-born, and Don Jago the younger. And when Don Jago was twenty years
old, he had a dream, in which he was told to go to the Madre Patria, where
great good fortune awaited him."

The man paused at the words Madre Patria, by which the reader will always
understand Spain. A number of Leperos had ascended the hillock, and
collected round the speaker.

"As Senor Don Jago," resumed Tatli Ixtla, "as younger son, had less claim
upon the inheritance of his father than Don Esau, he did according to his
dream, and betook himself to the Madre Patria, where, by his pleasant
discourse, he won the favour of the King of the Moors, who bestowed on him
his daughter, the Princesa Dona Lea, in marriage, and also, after two
years, his second daughter, the Princesa Dona Rachel. By these two wives
he had twelve sons and daughters, who were all kings and queens in the
Madre Patria, as well as their father, to whom the Gachupins still pray,
under the name of Sant Jago de Compostella."

The Indians and Metises, of whom the crowd of Leperos consisted, nodded
with that air of quiet conviction which may be frequently remarked amongst
the lower classes in certain European countries, when they hear histories
related which are support