Madame Lefaivre returned several days ago after a _mouvementé_ trip, as the _Espagne_ went on the rocks at Santander. Mr. Seeger gave a little _déjeuner_ for her at the Auto Club. The day was heavenly, and the sky as clean as if it had been pounded between the stones the washerwomen use on my roof. Everything was at its greenest. After the season of rains the flowers, the grass, the trees, emerge as if new-born. I felt, sitting on the terrace of the club, on the border of the little artificial lake, as if I were in a loge at the theater, as if the scene might at any moment be shifted, the black and white swans be removed, the water turned off, ourselves go off the stage, leaving only the changeless background of beautiful hills and diamond-powdered volcanoes. I like Madame Lefaivre so much, _très dame du monde_. The usual banalities of the _carrière_ having gone through with, I feel sure we'll soon begin the regular business of friendship. She had on a pale-gray dress, which toned in with her gray hair and fresh complexion. She and Mr. Lefaivre were engaged for nearly fifteen years before life cleared itself sufficiently of obstacles, of one kind or another, for them to marry. De la Barra sails the 23d of next month for Italy. I think it illustrative of his tact and good will to subtract himself completely from the very complicated situation, and to let his intention be known beforehand and reckoned with. Madame de la B. receives for the last time on Thursday next. In the evening there is a dinner at the Embassy, and on Saturday the German minister gives one of his big dinners. This seems all very simple, even banal, but few things are simple and nothing banal when played out against a Mexican background. _October 29th._ The political mills here are grinding fast, and not particularly fine. The Minister of War has been impeached, and President de la B. is resigning, not even waiting till the legal term of office (November 30th) expires. Nightly, crowds continue to parade the streets, singing, "Pino-no-no-no," though "Pino" has been duly elected Vice-President according to the "angelical returns from that temple of liberty and love, the polling-box," as one of the unconvinced deputies called the process. Zapata has been at the gates of the city and, with eight hundred men, allowed to pillage near-by towns. Indeed, there has been a public outcry against the suspicious vitality of the Zapata movement. There are those who say that the "Attila of the South" and the President-elect are _muy amigo_, and that if that General Huerta I wrote of had a really free hand he would, with his energetic methods, have long since solved that special problem.