"As this brilliant company filed out on the avenue, four cadets riding in double file between each carriage, flowers were strewn in the road by long lines of peon children dressed in white. At the city gates a double guard of Mexican and American soldiers, riding white horses and gorgeous with military trappings, escorted them through the city to the grand plaza, where the old cathedral was thronged with the proud and great of two nations, while the ministers and foreign ambassadors of nearly all of Europe and the Americas, waited in pomp of state with their wives and daughters, all attired in the extreme of luxury. I shall not try to depict the splendor of the final scene when the cardinal in his robes of scarlet pronounced the solemn service, and pale, handsome Bruce, wearing his uniform of a colonel, received his bride from the hand of Don Hernando Rozarro, the Spanish ambassador.
"Haughty Santa Anna was there, and General Taylor looked happily on, while all around were grouped our gallant officers, graceful and young, whose names now thunder down the galleries of fame linked with Antietam, Shiloh, and blood-drenched Malvern Hill. Grant and Lee, those slumbering lions, that in after years were to shake the continent with appalling conflict, now stood side by side, each carrying the wedding favor of their friend.
"A scene of splendor ensued that recalled the old pageants of the Montezumas, when a long line of gilded coaches and prancing white horses filed out in the twilight, along the avenue returning to Monteluma. The sun had set, but a parting gleam was yet crimsoning the snow on the volcano of Toluco, while the sombre cypresses were aglow with the green and rosy light of torches, carried by the double line of peons in their ancient Aztec garb. Old Monteluma glimmered like a jewel from terrace to turret with colored lights, while out upon the broad esplanades, where thousands of the peons were feasting, the fountains flashed white and misty, like the snow-storms of my Northern home.
"When Ivarene, leaning on Bruce's arm, walked up the long flight of steps to the doorway of her old home, the marble beneath her feet was hidden by the rose-leaves strewn by peon girls in white, while her train was borne by four small Indian pages in feather costumes, gorgeous as humming-birds. Within, the halls were blazing with light, and garlanded by tropic flowers. Tables were loaded with gold, silver, and crystal; wine flowed like water; while the viol and harp, gay dance and song, caused the hours to speed swiftly by, and the tired but happy revelers only sought their homes when the snowy summit of Popocatapetl was flushed with rose, and bars of pale gold flashed out from behind the dim crest of Orizaba.