XXI.

CHINITA Woke with a confused sensation of haste, and in the dim light discovered with a momentary surprise that she was in one of the chambers of the great house. Her first clear remembrance was that there was to be a wedding in the village that day, and that she must hasten to help array the bride, her old playmate, Caterina-a girl scarce older than herself, but who as the daughter of the silversmith held some pretensions to superior gentility among the village folk. She wondered that she was not in the choza with Florencia and the children, and raised herself upon one arm to peer through the gloom at the figure upon the bed; then suddenly sprang to her feet with an exclamation. The sight of the wounded man brought to memory the train of events connected with his appearance there. The young man was asleep, but even if he had been awake and in dire need of aid, she would not have paused an instant; for it flashed into her mind that she must see and speak to Tio Reyes before he left. He had told her so little-nothing that she could separate as a tangible fact. She must know more. Surely it was early still she never slept after daybreak-he would not yet be gone. Yet in quick apprehension, which burst forth in an irate interjection at her late awakening, she ran out into the patio.

The morning light was beaming there unmistakably, though no ray of sunlight penetrated it; but not a creature was stirring, and, still hopeful, she hurried to the outer court. The mingled sounds of men and horses greeted her ear. Although she was late, Tio Reyes perhaps was still there.

Vain hope! One glance around the great court showed her that he whom she sought was gone.

With an angry little cry, which made more than one muleteer turn to look at her, with "Que te pasé ?" on his lips, she sped across the court, and caught the arm of Pedro, who was standing dejectedly outside the great gate. He crossed himself as she appeared, and his face lighted up, then clouded again as she cried, "Where are the soldiers? When did they go? Why did no one awaken me?"

The man pointed with a disdainful gesture across the plain. Florencia was standing at the door of her hut, calling in a rage to a neighbor that those canalla had robbed her of her last puñal of pinolé; and Pedro began to explain to Chinita in his slow way that the "buenos amigos" of the night before had naturally enough demanded something from the women upon which to breakfast, and that instead of giving it to them quietly, and thanking the Virgin that after drinking the soup they had not taken the pot, they must needs scold and bewail, as though soldiers should be saints and live on air, and as if this was the first raid that ever had been heard of, instead of a mere frolic, very different from that of the month before, when the forces del clero had carried off a thousand fanegas of maize, without as much as a "God repay you."

Chinita gazed eagerly towards the east, and presently burst into passionate tears. The sun, which a moment before had shown a tiny red disk above the hills, flooded the plain with light, and. dazzled her vision. Through it she saw some rapidly moving figures. The man she sought was already. miles away. Silently but bitterly she re

proached herself. She had slept like an insensate lump, and suffered the man who could have told her so much, whom she would have forced to speak, to escape her. She could, as her eyes became accustomed to the light, distinguish his very figure in the clear atmosphere, and yet he, and all she would have learned were so far away. "What hast thou?" demanded Pedro gruffly; the soldiers have carried off nothing of thine! Heaven forfend! Go to the choza and drink the atolé if there is any left, and give God the thanks!"

66

The broad daylight had cleared the mind. of Pedro of all the sentimental fears of the night. The glamour had passed away; there stood Chinita with the old familiar trapitos about her, to be talked with, caressed it might be, certainly scolded with the mock severity of old. Yes, it was the same fiery, uncertain, irascible Chinita, who, clearing her eyes of their unusual tears with a backward sweep of her small brown hand, ran down the hill-not to the choza where Florencia stood with the water-jar, beckoning her, but in quite another direction, to join the little crowd of sympathizing friends who were gathered at the door of the silversmith.

Pepé was standing there with a gaily caparisoned donkey, destined to bear the novia to the village some eight miles distant, where the lazy priest who divided his time between the sinners of that point and Tres Hermanos, had consented to earn a royal fee by uniting two poor peasants in holy matrimony. "It is but for once," Gabriel had hopefully remarked, "and though one runs in debt for the wedding, one can hold one's head above one's neighbors, to say nothing of dying in peace, if a bull's horn finds its way some unlucky day between one's ribs."

Gabriel was a man who honored the proprieties, and Caterina was well pleased with the good fortune that had awarded her to him; though he was twice her age, and had

a squint which made ludicrous his most amorous glances.

"What has happened?" cried Pepé in a disappointed tone, as Chinita darted past him. "Didst thou not say thou wouldst ride with Caterina? she has been waiting for thee this half hour. The novio will be on his way before her if we tarry longer, and thou knowest what that_ portends. El novio impaciente becomes the "husband never appeased! the wife shall wait many a day for him."

"Bah," returned Chinita; "if Caterina were of my mind the novio would wait so long that my turn to play at paciencia would never arrive."

Vaya!" cried a woman who stood near "Who would have imagined thou wouldst be so envious, Chinita-and thou but a child yet? But thou art one that hast been brought up between cotton, and expectest the soft places all thy life."

"Pshaw!" answered Chinita. "Speak of what thou knowest, Señora Gomesinda; and thou, Pepé, cease making eyes at me. Thinkest thou I have nothing better to do than to ride after Caterina to see her married to yon black giant of a vaquero, who will manage his wife as he does his horseswith a thong? I tell thee as I tell her, he is not worth the beating she got when he asked for her!"

"Ay, Señora !" cried Gomesinda shrilly, was ever such talk from the mouth of a modest girl? What could a reasonable father and mother do for a girl when a man asks her in marriage? It is plain she must have played some tricks of our Señora Madre Eva to have beguiled him. Ay, but I remember my mother flailed me black and blue when José asked for me. I warrant you I screamed so hard the whole neighborhood knew she was doing the honorable part by me. Thank Heaven, I knew what was proper as well as another, and if I had given the man a glance from the corner of

my eyes, I was willing my shoulders should suffer for it. One may tell of it when one is the mother of ten children."

During this harangue, Chinita had slipped by her, and darted into the hut. She threw her arms around the expectant bride, who, dressed in the stiffest of muslin skirts. the upper one of which was of flowered pink muslin, stood waiting the finishing touches of her madrina.

"What, thou art not ready?" cried Caterina in a dejected tone, surveying Chinita with disapproving eyes. "Gabriel has twice sent messages that the sun has risen, and that the Señor Cura likes not to be kept long fasting, and thou knowest, as the priest sings, the sacristan answers.

Ay!" said Chinita laughing, "a lesson in patience will be good for both the cura, and thy Gabriel; but it will bode thee ill, if he learns it at the tienda, as I saw him doing just now. Truly, Caterina, thou must go without me. I am in no humor to go so far on thy ambling donkey-" and she drew herself up with an air of hauteur, which did not escape the observant eye of the bride, who said, with a reproachful look, "What have I done? Did I ever give thee a sharp word, Chinita ?”

For answer, Chinita threw her arms around the girl's neck; for she was really fond of Caterina, who had ever been a gentle girl, and had borne her perverse humors with a sort of admiring patience, which had flattered and won the heart of the wayward one. Completely mollified, Caterina pressed her cheek against Chinita's shoulder, for she had turned her face away, and said, "But thou wilt put on thy finest clothes and sit beside me at the fandango, wilt thou not? And thou wilt help my madrina to dress me. See, dost thou think she has done well this time?" and the girl threw her reboso from her head and shoulders, and exhibited her long, well-oiled tresses, with an air of conscious vanity.

"Nothing could be better," declared

Chinita heartily, pulling out a loop of the bright red ribbons; "Yes, yes," she added with some effort, "I will stay beside thee all through the fiesta. Thou hast ever been a good friend of mine, Caterina. There, there, they are calling thee;" and she pushed her towards the door, where by this time a noisy crowd had gathered.

Instead of only one donkey, there were five or six standing there, with gay bridles and necklaces of horsehair, brightened with cords of red or blue, and with panniers covered with well-trimmed sheepskins. As the Señora Madrina said, "She who should ride upon them would think herself on cushions of down." On the most luxurious of these rural thrones, Caterina was raised, and upon the others her mother and a number of female friends, mostly in pairs, were accommodated; and with many injunctions from the bystanders to haste, the bridal party were at last dismissed upon their way.

Laughing and chattering, the women dispersed to their huts to grind a fresh stint of maize to replace the tortillas and atole that had been carried away by the soldiers; but Chinita sat down at the door of the choza thus temporarily deserted, and with a smile of derision upon her lips watched the group of men congregated around the village shop. The bridegroom, a middle-aged man, with a dark face, deeply imbrowned by the sun, and deeply seamed with scars (for he had been a soldier before he was a vaquero) stood in the midst of them, dressed in a suit of buff leather, gay with embroidery. The embossed leather sheath of his knife showed in his scarlet faja, and immense spurs clanked on his heels in response to the buttons and chains on the half-opened sides of his chavarras. He was a picturesque figure

though Chinita's accustomed eyes failed to recognize that—as he stood with his wide, silver-laced hat pushed back upon the mat of black hair that crowned his swarthy countenance, holding high the small glass of mezIcal which he was about to drink in favor of

the brindis some comrade had proposed. Meanwhile, his companions were noisily hilarious, rallying him with impossible prophecies of good future, to which he listened with an air of imperturbability which was part of the etiquette of the occasion-for in all the world will be found no greater slave to his peculiar code of manners than the Mexican ranchero.

The party on donkey-back had almost disappeared upon the horizon before it seemed to occur to the group at the tienda that any movement was expected from them. More than once the women had stopped in their household tasks to call out a shrill " Vayanse adelante!" or "Por Dios, hombre! will you keep the priest waiting?" and still Gabriel affected the indifferent, until, as if by accident, he strolled towards his horse, which stood champing the bit impatiently. Immediately there was a rush of his best friends, and the triumphant one who caught the stirrup and held it as he mounted, claimed albricias for the good news of the departure which was effected at once after a series of pirouettes and caracolling, by Gabriel's putting spurs to his steed, and galloping madly away, followed by his friends as quickly as they could throw themselves into their saddles.

The spell of the day before continued still so to rest upon her, that Chinita neither joined in the cheer nor the laughter of the women, but turned slowly towards Pedro's hut. The cravings of a healthy appetite subdued for the moment the pride that scorned the lowly home. It was natural to go there for the gordo and the draught of atolé or chocolate, with which to break her fast. She found the share left for her; but after a mouthful or two it seemed to grow bitter to her taste. She divided it petulantly among the children who clamored around her, and in response to a call from Florencia went to Selsa's hut where they were making tortillas for the wedding feast,

resentfully refusing to help, yet glad of accustomed companionship. Much as she resented old associations, the wrench was too great for her to separate herself from them, especially as she had no conception of what could or should take their place. She was like a child upon the banks of a river that separates it from the further shore, which it longs to reach, though dreading to push forth from the one it knows, rough and forlorn though it may be. There was with her a strange sense of clinging, yet of impatience, of a problem to be solved, yet of lack of will to set herself to its solution, as she went from hut to hut. The fever of her mind expended itself first in seething irony and jests, and later in a wild repentance, which manifested itself in quick embraces of the halfoffended women, and in practical toil, which effectually promoted the preparations for the feast and went far to restore her to the good graces of the harassed workers. Indeed, often enough they paused in their labors to listen and laugh, as she stood at the brasero fanning the glowing charcoal, or watching the tortillas taken from the flat comal and piled in heaps upon the fringed and embroidered napkins used on such occasions of ceremony, or went from dish to dish of black frijoles, or red and fiery chili, rich with pork or fowl, or gazed with positive admiration upon the kids and lambs, stuffed with almonds and raisins, forcemeat and olives, and other delicacies, which, drawn smoking from the earthen ovens, attested the generosity of the Administrador toward his favorite vaquero.

Towards noon, the bride and her party returned, ambling home upon their donkeys, as humbly as they had gone. Caterina was conducted to her future home, and her mother-in-law, welcoming her with distant ceremony, intended to inspire respect, suffered her to touch her cheek with her lips, then led her to the inner room, where lay the apparel for her adornment-a number

of toilets being indispensable upon the occasion, and indicative of the pretensions of the bridegroom who had hired them.

Chinita, in her mingled mood of disdain and levity, had neglected to keep her promise of putting on holiday attire, and stood in some awe and much admiration before the bride as she at last appeared in the little bower or tent that had been raised for her at one side of the hut, facing upon the plaza where the feast was to be held. The little woman-for she was not fully grownwas resplendent in a stiff-flowered brocade of many colors, trimmed with real Spanish lace and bedecked with flowers, and wore a necklace and bracelets of imitation gems set in filagree, fit, as her madrina proudly declared, for the Blessed Virgin upon the high altar.

Caterina threw a glance of reproach upon Chinita; but her new dignity forbade recrimination. A shout presently announced that the bridegroom was in sight. The bride, well-drilled in her part, kept her glance fixed on the ground; and as he swept by her bower Gabriel deigned not a look, but reined in his horse at his door with a sudden turn of the hand, which almost threw the animal on its haunches, and before his stirrup could be seized had thrown himself from his saddle and was shaking hands with his friends, and immediately the feast began.

There was no table set. The fires burned at the corners of the plaza, and the women stood over them, dispensing the fragrant contents of the ollas to all comers. Yet in this apparent informality, the strictest decorum was observed, and not a bocado was swallowed or a drink of pulque or milky chia, without a friendly interchange of courtesies, which rather increased than grew less as the hours flew by.

The proverb is true that at a wedding the bride eats least; and at that of the Mexican peasant the saying becomes a law. Caterina was too well drilled in the proprieties to

touch a morsel of the delicacies offered her, but wore constantly the air of timid resignation with which she had met the assumed indifference of her spouse, who resolutely avoided casting even a glance in the direction where she held her court-the women crowding with ever increasing admiration to view her after each change of toilet, as they might have done to examine a gorgeous picture, commenting loudly upon the taste of the dresser and the liberality of the the groom. But nothing could be more satisfactory to her than this feigned indifference. "Is not Gabriel an angel?" she took occasion to ask Chinita, as for the tenth time she was changing her apparel. "Imagine to yourself twelve changes of clothes, and he acts as if the hiring of them were nothing! What a difference between him and Pancho Orteago, who was married at Easter. Four beggarly suits were all he provided for Anita, and not one silk among them; and he actually was quite close to her again and again, with mouth open, as if he would eat her! tal bobo! He would have spoken to her if he had had the chance. I should think she was half dead with mortification! such foolishness in public! Her mother cried with vexation; and no wonder, with such a slur cast on the family!"

"Yet it has been like a marriage of little doves!" cried Chinita. "Cuidado mujer, if thou wilt say that of thy own six months hence!"

Caterina shrugged her shoulders, and returned to her seat, with her eyes more coyly cast down, and a dejected mien, which might not have been altogether assumed; for, too earnest in acting her part even to take food in private, she was not unnaturally almost spent with the long and ceremonious state which for perhaps the only time in her life she was called upon to maintain.

By this time, torches of fat pine were blazing at every door post, and the strumming of harps, and bijuelas, and other primitive instruments became incessant.