The Mexican woman of the dawn of the republic was a type--indefinite, even elusive, amid the crowd of southern Latin nationalities, yet possessing some distinctive traits of manner, custom, and nature, and by these to be distinguished from her Italian, Spanish, or even South American kinswomen. But the individuality which she possessed, never strongly marked, soon began to fade before the incursion of a northern culture, with its novel ideals, standards, and requisites. When the United States was at war with Mexico, the type of the latter culture was at its most distinctive stage; and, though there were not a few of the women who were enamored of the methods of the northern invaders and became _Ayankeados_, as sympathizers with the foe were contemptuously termed, yet, as a rule, the women of Mexico proved true daughters of Anahuac in their hatred of the enemy of their native land. But these passions passed away with the coming of peace; and the Maximilian episode served to bring Mexico into somewhat closer relation with the civilization of her northern border neighbor. Still the national culture, if so it can be called, remained practically unaffected for years after the founding of the republic; for the purely Spanish families had been banished in large numbers, and the Maximilian rule was too brief to effect a new Latin invasion. But there was an invasion lowering upon the horizon of Mexico, though foreseen perhaps by few, which was destined to prove most effectual in influencing the future of the Mexican woman--the invasion of the Anglo-American in peaceful guise, armed with scrip and not with stave, and bearing the axe and spade in his hands. The wealth of Mexico began to attract the attention of the citizens of her northern neighbor, and they kindly hastened to relieve her of as much as she found at all burdensome and they themselves decided the discomfort of that burden. The typical American, the American _par excellence_, he of the United States, invaded Mexico once more, though this time in search of dollars, not glory; and under his influence, perhaps yet more under that of his wife and daughters, the feminine civilization of Mexico lost its individuality in its acceptance of standards which were unfitted to its conditions and unacceptable to its traditions. The woman of Mexico forgot her history and her very nature, and became, in the majority of cases, a mere imitator of Anglo-Saxon and Gallic fashion and custom. Once she smoked her dainty cigarette with entire nonchalance; now, even though her English and North American sisters have found a charm in the nicotian incense that is offered to the god of social converse, your Mexican woman, having long since been told solemnly that "_Las Americanas_ do not smoke," has thrown away her little roll of paper and tobacco, and has become "proper" according to standards with which she should have nothing in common. She has doffed her _rebozo_--that which