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 of prisoners who had been executed there. I saw one small, round, innocent-looking one which couldn't possibly have ever contained a harsh thought, I was sure, and I indignantly read the tag to see what he had been martyred for. Sarah, the busy boy had done twenty-one ladies to death!
We listen to melting music in the Alameda, we ride in the fashion parade in the Calle San Francisco, we drive out along the beautiful Paseo de la Reforma and drink chocolate in the shadow of the Castle of Chapultepec—chocolate made with cinnamon and so rich and sweet it almost bends the spoon to stir it. Miss Vail remembers with difficulty that she is the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time, a self-supporting young business woman who beats bright thoughts from a typewriter four earnest hours per diem ... or that she was....
Hoy—to-day, is very satisfying; I forget ayer—yesterday; Mañana—to-morrow, may never come!
Juana.
Christmas Eve, Cuernavaca.