sleeves rolled up, playing with the bright,
gilded scales she owned or showing her beautiful teeth in coquettish
smiles when men came by. For many gentlemen in town went marketing by
themselves, filling their neat, red-edged baskets at her counter for the
pleasure of a chat with the charming girl. Rosario, two tables beyond
_tia_ Picores, was busy putting the freshest of her wares to the fore.
The two girls were thus face to face, though they avoided each other's
eyes disdainfully, each turning her back when the other one looked her
way, though immediately afterwards they would be staring impudently and
angrily at each other again.

It was not long before a pretext for their daily quarrel was available.
A man had stopped at Rosario's counter and was bargaining, when Dolores,
with a vigorous rapping on her scales and one of her prettiest smiles,
enticed him in her direction. "Thief! Thief! He was my customer--one of
my best! And you've taken him away! I sell fish, I do; but you sell
...!" And the pale, bony cheeks of the frail, overworked Rosario flamed
red with spite and her gleaming eyes flashed fire. Dolores, drawing
herself up to her most crushing height of haughtiness, seemed to sniff
with her chubby but handsome nose: "Huh! Thief! Never mind about
thieves, darling! People here know who I am; and they know who you are;
and if they come to me ..."

The outlook for an interesting morning in the market suddenly improved.
The fish-women brightened on every hand, even neglecting their custom to
crane their necks and take in everything that was going on. With smiles
of amusement, the customers began to crowd around, while the inspector,
foreseeing what was coming, prudently slipped out, though he had
scarcely begun his rounds. _Tia_ Picores, in despair at such everlasting
quarrelsomeness, contented herself with a resigned invocation to heaven.
"Thief is what I said," Rosario resumed. "And everybody knows it. You
want everything I've got, and I can prove it. Here you steal my
customers and down at the Cabanal you steal ... well, you steal ...
something else ... something else.... She's not fooling me, I can tell
you, even if she is pulling the wool over her husband's eyes ... dolt
that he is, fool of a Rector, who don't know his chin from his elbow."
But Dolores was not moved from her patronizing self-possession. She
could see from the faces of the onlookers that every one was wondering
how she would take those allusions