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CHAP: XXII. THE LIVING HUITZILOPOCHTLI.

They buried Doña Carlota in Sayula, and Kate, though a woman, went also to the funeral. Don Ramón followed the coffin, in his white clothes and big hat with the Quetzalcoatl sign. His boys went with him; and there were many strangers, men, in black.

The boys looked odd young shoots, in their black suits with short breeches and bare knees. They were both round-faced and creamy brown in complexion, both had a touch of fairness. The elder, Pedro, was more like Don Ramón; but his hair was softer, more fluffy than his father's, with a hint of brown. He was sulky and awkward, and kept his head ducked. The younger boy, Cyprian, had the fluffy, upstanding brown hair and the startled hazel eyes of his mother.

They had come in a motor-car with their aunt, from Guadalajara, and were returning straight to town. In her will, the mother had named guardians in place of the father, stating that the father would consent. And her considerable fortune she had left in trust for the boys. But the father was one of the trustees.

Ramón sat in his room in the hotel, the lake, and his two boys sat on the cane settee opposite him.

“What do you want to do, my sons?” said Ramón. “To go back with your Aunt Margarita, and return to school in the United States?”

The boys remained a while in sulky silence.

“Yes!” said Cyprian at last, his brown hair seeming to fluff up with indignation. “That is what our mother wished us to do. So, of course, we shall do it.”

“Very well!” said Ramón quietly. “But remember I am your father, and my door, and my arms, my heart will always be open to you, when you come.”

The elder boy shuffled with his feet, and muttered without looking up:

“We cannot come, papa!”

“Why not, child?”

The boy looked up at him with brown eyes as challenging as his own.