Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/557

 Rh "Bell-o! (beautiful!) "bell-is-si-mo!" (beautiful to the last degree!).

Others throw their hats into the ring. I don't quite recollect whether they get them out again or not. The rich, in moments of great impulse, confer more substantial favors; they throw money, valuables, and flowers as these are thrown to prima donnas. The other day, at Aranjuez, in Spain, the Marquis of Sandoal was so much pleased with the delicate attention of the Espada Felipe in dedicating to him the killing of the third bull, that he sent him a hundred dollars and a box of fine Havana cigars. Favorite espadas are, traditionally, recipients of great honors and emoluments. There are those who wear diamond studs and pearl-embroidered jackets in the ring; and three hundred dollars is an ordinary compensation for one Sunday's work.

I glanced back over my shoulder. There was my friend the señora, with the same amiable smile. Her daughters, hardly more than school-girls, willowy Soledad and plump Ysabel, sat beside her, their chins resting on their hands, with that half-absent well-governed air characteristic of very young Mexican señoritas. It is doubtful if there had been an oh! or an ay! of sympathy among them all. Like the heroine of one of the little poems lately—for poets too are inspired by the subject—they might have replied to me at most, had I asked them how it pleased them :

The husband and father of the family, for his part, was