family in reduced circumstances. Mrs. Stevenson had a very
feminine liking for jewels, but they had to be different from the
ordinary sort to attract her, and she was much pleased to pick up in
Mexico some pieces of the odd and barbaric designs that she especially
liked.

Delightful days were spent in the city prowling about the queer old
shops and buying curious things that are not to be found in other
parts of the world. This was the kind of shopping that she really
enjoyed--this poking about in strange, romantic places.

Among the very few people that Mrs. Stevenson met in Mexico in a
social way was the well-known historian and archaeologist, Mrs. Zelia
Nuttall, whom she considered a most charming and interesting woman.
Together with her daughter she lunched with Mrs. Nuttall at her
picturesque house, once the home of Alvarado, in the outskirts of
Mexico City. It was the oldest house they had ever seen, and, with its
inner _patio_, outside stairways and balconies, and large collection
of rare idols, pots, and weapons that Mrs. Nuttall had herself
unearthed from old Indian ruins, was intensely interesting.

Hearing of an opening in the mining business at Oaxaca for her nephew,
she decided to go there and look into the matter. Conditions at Oaxaca
were found to be even more primitive than at the capital. One time
they asked for hot water, but the American landlady threw up her hands
and cried, "Oh, my dears! There is a water famine in Oaxaca. It is
terrible. We can get you a very small jug to wash with, but it isn't
clear enough to drink."

"What are we to drink?"

In answer to this she brought a large jug of bottled water that
tasted strongly of sulphur. This they mixed with malted milk bought at
a grocery, making a beverage of which they said that though they had
tasted better in their time, they certainly never had tasted worse.
Notwithstanding all these inconveniences Mrs. Stevenson was in the
best of tempers and keenly interested in seeing places and things, and
when she tired was happy with a magazine or sitting at a window
watching the street life. The first evening, while they were sitting
in the _patio_, there was a violent earthquake, which seemed to them
worse than the famous shake of 1906 in San Francisco, but it did no
damage and the hotel people made nothing of it.

After seeing her nephew off to the mines at Taviche, and taking a side
trip to see the ancient buried city of Mitla, Mrs. Stevenson a