e poor
girls, who lived in the Calle de Aguila, the fashionable Spanish street,
and had been awakened from their siesta by the _grito_ and disturbance,
had come, attended by their negro waiting-maids, to pay a visit to their
friend Isidra, whom they had found giving herself up to all the delights
of Mexican _farniente_.

The mirador on which the three girls were lounging and smoking, was
connected with the _sala_, or drawing-room, by lofty folding-doors, which
stood open. At the further end of this sala was the _estrada_, a kind of
raised platform; on the estrada a large low ottoman, and on the ottoman
two figures, of which the one sat upright, and the other was in a
reclining posture. The girdle of the latter was loosened, and the upper
part of the body bare of all covering, except a profusion of glossy black
hair, which was spread out over the bosom and shoulders; answering,
however, less the purpose of a veil, than that of making more evident the
whiteness of the owner's skin. The lady thus unceremoniously disapparelled
was apparently very young; but no inference could be drawn from her face,
which was concealed in the lap of her companion, a mulatto girl, whose
fingers and eyes were alike busy in an investigation of her mistress's
head; a search so eager, active, and absorbing, that she resembled a
huntress, forgetting, in the ardour of the chase, all surrounding objects.

The saloon occupied by these two damsels was furnished in the usual manner
of Spanish houses of the better class; the floor spread with _esteras_, or
mats, a large table in the centre, and two smaller ones at the sides, the
latter supporting images of the Virgen de los Remedios, and of San Jago de
Compostella. A dozen or two high-backed chairs, dating probably from the
time of Philip the Fourth, made up the furniture. The walls were covered
with square tiles of blue earthenware, the hangings were of green Cordovan
leather, and instead of the chandelier, which hung in one corner of the
extensive apartment, six silken cords were suspended from the large gilt
hook in the centre of the ceiling. On the table in the middle of the room
lay several musical instruments, amongst them a Spanish guitar and a
Mexican _teponatzli_ or lute--the latter a hollow wooden cylinder, with
two parallel holes cut in the centre, and played upon by means of sticks
tipped with caoutchouc.

A cloister-like stillness reigned in the saloon as well as on the balcony,
and not