Though entertained with lordly munificence in every place through which he passed, and visited and complimented by envoys from all the states embraced in the Mexican domain, the sagacious Spaniard relaxed none of his vigilance, nor diminished aught of the strict discipline of his little corps. With an eye ever awake to his own safety, and feeling that the artful contriver of one stratagem could easily invent another, he advanced from post to post, in martial array, always ready for the exigency that might arise. His course, however, was unmolested. The resources and hopes of the great king seemed to have been exhausted. In passive despair, he was waiting for the hour of his doom. The terror of the events we have described fell not alone upon the unfortunate Montezuma; nor did they affect him only as monarch of the realm. As a parent, fondly devoted to his children, whose destiny was wrapped up in his, as the father of his people, to whom he had been a kind of demi-god, the vicegerent of heaven, entitled to their unqualified reverence, obedience and love, he felt with tenfold intensity the bitterness of his humiliation. In all his sufferings and distresses his wives and children shared, showing, by every token in their power, their profound respect and affection, and their tender sympathy in all his cares. In these lovely demonstrations of filial affection, none were more assiduous or warm-hearted, and none more successful in reaching the heart of the broken spirited monarch, or winning from him an occasional smile of hope, than Tecuichpo. Just ripening into womanhood, with every gift of person, mind and heart that could satisfy the pride of the monarch, and requite to the full the yearning love of the father, the fair princess lavished on him all her powers of persuasion and condolence. It was all in vain. It even aggravated his sorrows; for it was on _her_ account, and that of others dearer to him than his own life, that he suffered most deeply. The mysterious shadows that had brooded so darkly over the infancy of his lovely daughter, had never ceased to shed a chilling gloom over his mind. Her clouded destiny was linked with his, not merely as a child, but as one specifically marked out, by infallible signs from heaven, for a signal doom. His superstitious faith invested her and her fate with a peculiar sacredness. She was as one whom the gods had devoted to an awful sacrifice, from which neither imperial power nor paternal love could rescue her. It therefore pierced his soul with a deeper pang to gaze upon her loveliness, and witness her amiable efforts to soothe and sustain him in the midst of calamities that were more terrible and overwhelming to her, than even to himself. If, by offering himself as a sacrifice to his offended gods, he could have propitiated their favor for his family and his people, and handed down to his posterity an undiminished empire and an untarnished crown, he would have gone with as