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336 Augustin to Havana, and at the same time communicated with Madame Iturbide, who joyfully met and received again to her tender heart her idolized boy. He is now a strikingly handsome young man, twenty-three years of age, six feet in height, and possessing wonderful physical strength. He has a finished education, both European and American, and is an accomplished linguist. He is also a lover of scientific knowledge, and exceptionally well read in history. Added to these natural and acquired advantages, he has artistic tastes, sketches from nature, and is skilled in music. In 1885 he was awarded the gold medal at the college at Georgetown, D. C, for the best oration delivered at the closing exercises. The hero of a romantic story, he appears unconscious of the notice he has attracted, and retains his modest demeanor and genial disposition, with the dignity and social graces which render his society delightful to all who come in contact with him. On his handsome country estate he leads a business life, and never seems happier than when there, dressed in his buckskin suit and silver-decked sombrero, and mingling freely among his employees, who adore him. The minutest detail of hacienda life claims his careful attention, showing a happy adaptability to circumstances.

The elegant residence of the Iturbides at the capital stands on the grand Pasco, immediately to the right of the statue of Carlos IV. Both there and at their hacienda of San Miguel Sesma, I have enjoyed their graceful hospitality and unrestricted friendship. On these occasions Madame Iturbide related many interesting incidents and reminiscences of her boy's early life. Among them, to me, one of the most amusing was the manner in which Augustin, when a little more than four years old, spoke his first English. His cousin, Plater Green, a few months older, fell from a tree, when Augustin ran to his parents, crying out: "Plater he up de tree—Plater he down de tree—Plater he no cry—Plater he one very man!" After this he would speak no more Spanish. Although brought up according to the Mexican custom of dependence on a servant, he early manifested the desire to throw off such bondage and prove his self-reliance. At the