Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/416

396 I am here but to serve you"—"My house and everything in it, is quite at your disposal"—"Command me in all things;" we shall of course be disappointed by finding that notwithstanding these reiterated assurances, we must hire a house for ourselves, and even servants to wait on us; but take these expressions at what they are worth, and I believe we shall find that people here are about as sincere as their neighbors.

8th.—A good deal of surmise, because four Texian vessels are cruising in the bay off Vera Cruz. There is also a good deal of political talk, but I have no longer Madame de Staël's excuse for interfering in politics, which, by the way, is a subject on which almost all Mexican women are well informed; possessing practical knowledge, the best of all, like a lesson in geography given by travelling. I fear we live in a Paradise Lost, which will not be Regained in our day. . ..

My attention is attracted, while I write, by the apparition of a beautiful girl in the opposite balcony, with hair of a golden brown, hanging in masses down to her feet. This is an uncommon color here; but the hair of the women is generally very long and fine. It rarely or never curls. We were amused the other day. in passing by a school of little boys and girls, kept in a room on the first floor of Señor 's house, to see the school-mistress, certainly not in a very elegant dishabille, marching up and down with a spelling-book in her hand, her long hair hanging down, and trailing on the floor a good half yard behind her; while every time she turned, she switched it round like a court train. . ..