Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/476

460 A part of our party attended the midnight mass on the "Buena Noche," or night before Christmas, and saw the procession of the wise men of the East enter in search of the new-born Christ, while kneeling thousands looked on in admiration, and repeated the prayers for the occasion. The music was fine, the singing good, and the spectacle altogether a beautiful and imposing one.

On Sunday I went to the cathedral with two lady friends, one who went to pray with a simple, child-like faith, for the loved parents, sisters, brothers and friends she was leaving behind her in the home of her youth; and one of another faith, a happy young wife, who went with her, only to watch over her as is the custom of the country. I stopped at the door while they went in. My married friend wore a fashionable hat upon her head, and did not conform to the usages of the place, but stood erect, by the wall. These facts drew the attention of some of the worshipers, and one of them approaching her said reproachfully, but not exactly threateningly, and apparently more in sorrow than in anger, "I see that you are a devil!" whereupon, she came out at once, and waited by the door, until the young girl, with a face radiant with the pleasure which comes from the consciousness of duty well performed, arose from her knees and came forth to meet us.

A few years since it would not have been safe for a Protestant woman, with her head covered with a hat, to have been seen in that place, but now the case is different. There is some trace of the old bigotry to be seen among the lower classes still, but its fire is fast dying out in every part of Mexico.

On Sunday night we went to the theater, where