AT PUERTO MENDEZ. 
53 
wrapper. She had rather a sweet face, and 
received us with anxious courtesy. One by one 
the other occupants of the room were brought 
up and introduced, and shook hands. The 
eldest daughter took after her father, and was 
a pretty refined girl about fifteen, with fair 
rippling hair, very blue eyes, and a pink and 
white complexion. She was dressed in a blue 
muslin frock, her hair in a thick plait down her 
back. There was another girl of about the 
same age, who appeared to be spending the day 
with her : a thin faced sallow slip of a thing, 
just back from a trip down the river, with a 
paste slide fastening her hair. The two girls 
stood with their arms round each other, in an 
affectionate attitude, but one felt a touch of 
rivalry between them. In that hot climate 
women mature early. Two young men were 
making themselves agreeable to them : one, a 
flashy looking clerk, or store-keeper, with oiled 
hair and a small curled moustache, dressed in a 
linen suit. The other, a half-caste, tall and 
lithe, in riding breeches and a loose shirt, with 
spurs on his long soft boots, a knife in his broad 
leather belt, and a silver-handled whip dangling 
from his wrist. He looked as if he might be a 
dangerous rival, and a black eye did not add to 
his charms; but the other man had the more 
assurance. 
The Indian wife was rather overwhelmed by 
our arrival, and as her Spanish vocabulary was 
