myself the
pleasure of talking to him? I shall never meet his like again. Let me
live for a little while."

"Ay, but do not live too hard! It hurts down into the core and
marrow."

XX.

While we were eating supper, a dozen Indian girls were gathered about
a table in one of the large rooms behind the house, busily engaged
in blowing out the contents of several hundred eggs and filling the
hollowed shells with cologne, flour, tinsel, bright scraps of paper.
Each egg-was then sealed with white wax, and ready for the cascaron
frolic of the evening.

We had been dancing, singing, and talking for an hour after rosario,
when the eggs were brought in. In an instant every girl's hair was
unbound, a wild dive was made for the great trays, and eggs flew in
every direction. Dancing was forgotten. The girls and men chased each
other about the room, the air was filled with perfume and glittering
particles, the latter looking very pretty on black floating hair.
Etiquette demanded that only one egg should be thrown by the same hand
at a time, but quick turns of supple wrists followed each other very
rapidly. To really accomplish a feat the egg must crash on the back of
the head, and each occupied in attack was easy prey.

Chonita was like a child. Two priests were of our party, and she made
a target of their shaven crowns, shrieking with delight. They vowed
revenge, and chased her all over the house; but not an egg had broken
on that golden mane. She was surrounded at one time by caballeros, but
she whirled and doubled so swiftly that every cascaron flew afield.

The pelting grew faster and more furious; every room was invaded; we
chased each other up and down the corridors. The people in the court
had their cascarones also, and the noise must have been heard at the
Mission. Don Guillermo hobbled about delightedly, covered with tinsel
and flour. Estenega had tried a dozen times to hit Chonita, but as
if by instinct she faced him each time before the egg could leave his
hand. Finally he pursued her down the corridor to her library, where
I, fortunately, happened to be resting, and both threw themselves into
chairs, breathless.

"Let us stay here," he said. "We have had enough of this."

"Very well," she said. She bent her head to lift a book which had
fallen from a shelf, and felt the soft blow of the cascaron.

"At last!" said Estenega, contentedly. "I was determined to conquer,
if I waited until morning."

Chonit