Any day, she said, the United States Government
might send out a new Land Commission to examine the decrees of
the first, and revoke such as they saw fit. Once a thief, always a
thief. Nobody need feel himself safe under American rule. There
was no knowing what might happen any day; and year by year the
lines of sadness, resentment, anxiety, and antagonism deepened on
the Senora's fast aging face.
It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, when the Commissioners,
laying out a road down the valley, ran it at the back of her house
instead of past the front. "It is well," she said. "Let their travel be
where it belongs, behind our kitchens; and no one have sight of the
front doors of our houses, except friends who have come to visit
us." Her enjoyment of this never flagged. Whenever she saw,
passing the place, wagons or carriages belonging to the hated
Americans, it gave her a distinct thrill of pleasure to think that the
house turned its back on them. She would like always to be able to
do the same herself; but whatever she, by policy or in business,
might be forced to do, the old house, at any rate, would always
keep the attitude of contempt,-- its face turned away.
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