Page:From Yauco to Las Marias.djvu/60

36 having nothing but Castilian blood in their veins are as proud as Virtue; and, while politics and business see a certain mingling of skin-colors, the mixture ceases to exist across the threshold of home. No true Spaniard would permit himself to sing of his "coal-black lady" or his "cute little yallar gal"; and, if he did, he would be ostracized.

The women are all very pretty or extremely ugly, and never simply plain. The girls of the better class are brought up from babyhood under a constant surveillance that knows no laxity until after marriage, and does not altogether cease even then. The growing bud is taught to play the piano or guitar, to embroider, to sing a little, to dance a little less, to speak and read French, to powder her face with art, and to walk like a very queen. She is usually married before she is seventeen, especially if her father has money; and, until the day of her death, she never sees a modern newspaper, never goes slumming, and never soils her gentle hands with work of any degree. She is apt to love