Chapter II

Delfina, the first child of Alvarado, born in the purple at the governor's mansion in Monterey, was about to be baptized with all the pomp and ceremony of the Church and time. Dona Martina, the wife of a year, was unable to go to the church, but lay beneath her lace and satin coverlet, her heavy black hair half covering the other side of the bed. Beside her stood the nurse, a fat, brown, high-beaked old crone, holding a mass of grunting lace. I stood at the foot of the bed, admiring the picture.

"Be careful for the sun, Tomasa," said the mother. "Her eyes must be strong, like the Alvarados',--black and keen and strong."

"Sure, senora."

"And let her not smother, nor yet take cold. She must grow tall and strong,--like the Alvarados."

"Sure, senora."

"Where is his Excellency?"

"I am here." And Alvarado entered the room. He looked amused, and probably had overheard the conversation. He justified, however, the admiration of his young wife. His tall military figure had the perfect poise and suggestion of power natural to a man whose genius had been recognized by the Mexican government before he had entered his twenties. The clean-cut face, with its calm profile and fiery eyes, was not that of the Washington of his emulation, and I never understood why he chose so tame a model. Perhaps because of the meagerness of that early proscribed literature; or did the title "Father of his Country" appeal irresistibly to that lofty and doomed ambition?

He passed his hand over his wife's long white fingers, but did not offer her any other caress in my presence.

"How dost thou feel?"

"Well; but I shall be lonely. Do not stay long at the church, no? How glad I am that Chonita came in time for the christening! What a beautiful comadre she will be! I have just seen her. Ay, poor Diego! he will fall in love with her; and what then?"

"It would have been better had she come too late, I think. To avoid asking Diego to stand for my first child was impossible, for he is the man of men to me. To avoid asking Dona Chonita was equally impossible, I suppose, and it will be painful for both. He serenaded her last night, not knowing who she was, but having seen her at her grating; he only returned yesterday. I hope she plants no thorns in his heart."

"Perhaps they will marry and bind the wounds," suggested the woman.

"An Estenega and an Iturbi y Moncada will not marry. He might forget, for he is passionate and of a nature to break down barriers when a wish is dear; but she has all the wrongs of all the Iturbi y Moncadas on her white shoulders, and all their pride in the carriage of her head; to say nothing of that brother whom she adores. She learned this morning that it was Diego's determined opposition that kept Reinaldo out