Evening Party and Morning Call 



head, for, mira Fmd. (look you), while your tongue is danc- 

 ing our teeth are standing still." 



" Cachaza^ hijo (patience, my son) ; p'lerda Vmd. cuidado 

 (may your worship be relieved of solitude)." And then 

 she would return to her chattering about Don Roberto. 



During the interval before supper was ready, the fair 

 Facunda paid us a visit, and said that she hoped we should 

 be comfortable, and that her house was at our disposition 

 whenever it pleased us to honour it. I said I would do 

 myself the honour of paying her an evening visit after 

 supper. She sat there knitting a stocking, and, by way of 

 diversion, I knitted a i^sfj rounds, which created a proper 

 degree of astonishment. When she departed, I told stories 

 to the children about little boys lost in the mountains, and 

 distressed by lions, and tigers, and wild bulls, and rescued 

 by fairies in winged cars drawn by media docena mariposas 

 (half a dozen butterflies) : but at last the supper was ready. 

 We ate ravenously, and immediately after became very 

 sleepy over our pipes. Harry judiciously went to bed at 

 once ; but I, with a lingering intention of going to pay my 

 visit over the way, if I could wake up enough at any future 

 period, dozed in the chimney-corner till it was too late, 

 and then waking up, wrote my journal, and went to bed. 



Next morning, Sunday, we had arranged to ride up to 

 the Piedras Encantadas, a league up among the hills ; but 

 after breakfast, while the mules were being caught, which 

 caused an unforeseen delay, I went and made a morning call 

 over the way. 



The beauteous Facunda was dressed for mass, and was 

 coifing her little sisters for the same occasion. It was an 

 irregular, dark interior, with nooks and chimney-corners 

 something like a Highland bothy, only larger. In one 

 corner of the chimney lay an old bedridden grandsire, to 



