t only did her appearance
realize the expectations of the Marquis, but the girl seemed equally
attractive for her self-possessed manners and lively mind. The nobleman
was charmed. On his way home he met a cart loaded with coconut dippers
and he bought the entire lot and sent it as his first present.

After this the exile invented numerous excuses to call, till
Mariquita's mother finally agreed to his union with her daughter. His
political disability made him out of favor with the State church,
the only place in which people could be married then, but Mariquita
became what in English would be called a common-law wife. One of their
children, Jose, had a tobacco factory and a slipper factory in Meisic,
Manila, and was the especial protector of his younger sister, Regina,
who became the wife of attorney Manuel de Quintos. A sister of Regina
was Diega de Castro, who with another sister, Luseria, sold "chorizos"
(sausages) or "tiratira" (taffy candy), the first at a store and
the second in their own home, but both in Cavite, according to the
variations of one narrative.

A different account varies the time and omits the noble ancestor by
saying that Regina was married unusually young to Manuel de Quintos to
escape the attentions of the Marquis. Another authority claims that
Regina was wedded to the lawyer in second marriage, being the widow
of Facundo de Layva, the captain of the ship Hernando Magallanes,
whose pilot, by the way, was Andrew Stewart, an Englishman.

It is certain that Regina Ochoa was of Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog
ancestry, and it is recorded that she was the wife of Manuel de
Quintos. Here we stop depending on memories, for in the restored
burial register of Kalamba church in the entry of the funeral of
Brigida de Quintos she is called "the daughter of Manuel de Quintos
and Regina Ochoa."

Manuel de Quintos was an attorney of Manila, graduated from Santo Tomas
University, whose family were Chinese mestizos of Pangasinan. The
lawyer's father, of the same name, had been municipal captain of
Lingayan, and an uncle was leader of the Chinese mestizos in a
protest they had made against the arbitrariness of their provincial
governor. This petition for redress of grievances is preserved in
the Supreme Court archives with "Joaquin de Quintos" well and boldly
written at the head of the complainants' names, evidence of a culture
and a courage that were equally uncommon in those days. Complaints
under Spanish rule