answered,
in the same language; then, with an effort after an unexceptionable
translation, "Vat you call, Twenty-cinq year"!

The great obstacle to the dialogue soon becomes, however, a deficit of
subjects rather than of words. Most of these ladies never go out except
to mass and to parties, they never read, and if one of them has some
knowledge of geography, it is quite an extended education; so that, when
you have asked them if they have ever been to St. Michael, and they have
answered, Yes,--or to Lisbon, and they have answered, No,--then social
intercourse rather flags. I gladly record, however, that there were some
remarkable exceptions to this, and that we found in the family of
the late eminent Portuguese statesman, Mousinho d'Albuquerque,
accomplishments and knowledge which made their acquaintance an honor.

During the intervals of the dancing, little trays of tea and of cakes
are repeatedly carried round,--astonishing cakes, in every gradation of
insipidity, with the oddest names: white poison, nuns' kisses, angels'
crops, cats' tails, heavenly bacon, royal eggs, coruscations, cocked
hats, and _esquecidos_, or oblivion cakes, the butter being omitted. It
seems an unexpected symbol of the plaintive melancholy of the Portuguese
character that the small confections which we call kisses they call
sighs, _suspiros_. As night advances, the cakes grow sweeter and the
dances livelier, and the pretty national dances are at last introduced;
though these are never seen to such advantage as when the peasants
perform them on a Saturday or Sunday evening to the monotonous strain of
a viola, the musician himself taking part in the complicated dance, and
all the men chanting the refrain. Nevertheless they add to the gayety of
our genteel entertainment, and you may stay at the party as long as you
have patience,--if till four in the morning, so much the better for your
popularity; for, though the gathering consist of but thirty people, they
like to make the most of it.

Perhaps the next day one of these new friends kindly sends in a present
for the ladies of the party: a bouquet of natural flowers with the
petals carefully gilded; a _folar_ or Easter cake, being a large loaf of
sweetened bread, baked in a ring, and having whole eggs, shell and all,
in the midst of it. One lady of our acquaintance received a pretty
basket, which being opened revealed two little Portuguese pigs, about
eight inches long, snow-white, wearing blue