Yet, though individuality was at the time of the foundation of the republic to be found most decisive in the peon class, it may be broadly said that at that period the Mexican woman was generally characteristic and individual. She reproduced and accentuated many Spanish traits; she was gay beneath a mask of propriety, immoral--the rule of generalities must be remembered--under the cloak of a profound piety, vengeful and jealous under the garb of a real love, and in all ways was the emphasis of the Spanish woman of her time. She was more than that, however; she had her national and even racial traditions and characteristics which parted from the Castilian culture at certain points and turned to the old fount of the Aztec racial influence. She was more profoundly superstitious than her Spanish sister, and she was more concerned with outer guise in all matters of morality or religion. She would not for the world miss her accustomed attendance at mass, but she did not fail to recognize the opportunities offered by the ceremonial, with its genuflections and its periods of rest, for the transmittal of notes of amorous inspiration, and many was the _billet d'amour_ which was slipped by a tiny hand into a broader palm as the respective owners thereof bowed in apparently deep reverence at the elevation of the Host. Among the higher classes, the Mexican señora and señorita were far less educated and cultivated than their Spanish kindred; yet among the lower classes--not the peons, but the shopkeeper class in the cities, the small landholders in the country--education of a kind was further advanced in Mexico than in Spain. Most interesting in certain ways, though least individual of all, was this middle class, wearing as their festal costume, "white embroidered gowns, with white satin shoes and neat feet and ankles, _rebozos_, or bright shawls, thrown over their heads;" while the peasants on the same occasions were dressed in "short petticoats of two colors, generally scarlet and yellow, with thin satin shoes and lace-trimmed chemises." Stockings, it may be noticed, are not referred to in either case; sixty years ago they were not considered at all _de rigueur_ in the costume of a Mexican woman of any but the very highest class and, if we are to believe all travellers, not even invariably among the señoritas themselves.