Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 2.djvu/731

Rh In 1826, being anxious to have our eldest little girl baptized, we solicited the Count and Countess Regla, with whom we were upon very intimate terms, to be her sponsors. They consented with great readiness and satisfaction, on condition that the whole management of the ceremony should be left to them; and on receiving a promise to this effect, (given without any idea on our part of the consequences to which it was to lead,) a splendid church ceremony was prepared, with hundreds of wax-lights, and music, and crowds of attendants; and this again was succeeded on the following day by a dinner of twenty people, and by presents of diamonds, for which it was impossible for us to make any adequate return, while to reject them would have been regarded as a mortal offence.

From Don Pablo de la Llave, (at that time Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs,) by whom the service was performed, we likewise received a certificate of baptism, printed on silk and inclosed in a gold frame, with all the names of the child duly inscribed upon it. Frances was the only one selected by ourselves, but to this were added Guadalupe, (in honour both of the Virgin of that name, and of the President,) and Felipa de Jesus, in commemoration of the only Mexican Saint acknowledged by the Church of Rome.

It is needless to add that we felt most grateful to the Regla family for their kindness upon this occasion. It had the effect, however, of preventing