t we
occasionally extended our evening's ride, but for a half-uttered _adios!
Capitan!_ from the pearly teeth of little Juanita. I believe there never
was so much dirt and beauty combined. She was the sweetest mite
imaginable, and of a style to have destroyed Murillo's slumbers. Then
pretty Juana suffered from _calenturas_--fever and ague,--and I at times
carried a little phial of quinine, and felt Juana's pulse and temples,
but the jolly patrona would shake her head roguishly, and exclaim,
jestingly,--_No es possible, Senor Chato, sin matrimonio_--you can't
make love without marriage. _Ah! pico largo_, I would reply, _con razon,
pero llama vd el padre Molino_--certainly, so send for Father Windmill.
We had a private code of signals with Maria, to hang a "banner on the
outward walls," in shape of a white petticoat, whenever the Mexican
troops came within hail. She mortally detested them, for they made too
free with her hen-roost, and muscal bottles; and on her weekly
pilgrimages to the port, seated on a quiet mule, with pretty Juana
behind, attired in her holiday dress, and Jesusita, the youngest and
most diminutive piece of womanhood, tripping along the road beside them,
they would pay us a visit at the _casa blanca_, with some little
present, of eggs or fruit; and the brave old lady would invariably
beseech us for a loaded carbine _para fusilar los ladrones_--to shoot
the scamps. Once I saw the signal with the spyglass, and attended by a
friend rode out to the rancho; but it was a false alarm, caused by an
old white horse standing lazily behind the pickets. We found the group
of Maria and daughters washing in the lagoon, nearly all in dishabille:
Juanita with naught but a flimsy _chemisetta_, not a ceinture around the
little waist, revealing the most adorable juste-milieu form--between the
bud and the rose--with rich masses of dark hair covering her shoulders,
and rivalling in beauty the splendor of her eyes. I drove the old lady
into the pond, for which indecorous behavior she launched a calibash of
wet clothes at my head, then snatching up little Jesusa, just four years
old, I bore her to the beach for a dip in the surf. "How rich you are,"
said the little creature, as I commenced disrobing. "Why?"--"Because you
wear stockings." And this, indeed, is one of the distinctive marks of
wealth among the lower orders throughout Mexico.

It not unfrequently happened, that reports were circulated, without much
foundation, th