Then her voice became soft and dreamy again. "I visited here long years ago. I was out in your Old Town, where the Indian maid Ramona lived. I stood in the square there. Do you know the story, Eveley, of the early days when your Captain Fremont and his band of soldiers stood there, ready to lower the flag of Mexico and to raise in its place your Stars and Stripes? As your soldier stepped forward to tear down our flag, a little girl of Mexico, another Marie like me, who was watching with aching heart from the window of the 'dobe house on the other side, shocked at the outrage, leaped from the casement forgetting her fear of the foreign soldiers, and with one tug of her sharp knife cut the rope. As the flag of Mexico fell, she caught it in her bare hands, and pressed it against her lips, her little form shaken with sobs. 'Forgive me,' she said to the soldiers, but it is the flag of my country, I could not see it dragged in the dust.'" Eveley leaned over and put her hand on Marie's arm. "I have heard the story many times, but I never caught the glory of it before. It was the feeling in her that is in me now--that is in all America--only ours is for America, and hers was for Mexico--as yours is." "When I look at you, and know the tenderness of you, and the great heart of you, I feel that America must be the heaven of all the world, and Americans the angels." Then Marie's face darkened, and her lips became a scarlet line. "But who then has stood heartlessly by, and watched the writhing and anguish of my Mexico, withholding the hand of power that could bring peace? Who has stood by and smiled while Mexico lay crushed and bleeding beneath the heel of despotism and treachery?" "We haven't understood, Marie," begged Eveley. "We could not understand. We--we naturally trust people, we are like that, you know, and--" "And whom can one trust? My faith has been as my faith in God--yet when so many falter, and then turn back in betrayal--how can one trust? Perhaps we are all deceived--perhaps every faction in my country is seeking only to despoil and enslave." Then her face grew bright and luminous as she said, "But there are those who are princes of sacrifice and love, risking all their world, their lives, their honor, for my Mexico. If there be any faith, it is in them. You call them bandits--Yes? I call them sons of God." Eveley changed the subject as quickly as she could. The bandits who had been driven desperately from crag to cranny, berated in the press, denounced in the pulpit, deprecated on the platform--were these the princes of Marie's Mexico, the idols of their women's hearts, the saviors of their faith, their hope of freedom? It was very confusing.