Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/149

Rh dignity and elegance of her carriage. An artist looking upon her might have imagined a new Rebecca; for nothing is more faithful to the biblical idea than the young girls of the coast who come to the wells for water, poising their great red jars upon the head without disturbing in the least their lightness or freedom of motion."

Thus Alejandra, the beautiful brown girl of Acapulco, enters upon the scene of her future trials and triumphs. The idyllic story of homely country life, wherein rich differs from poor only in that the bounty of one supplies the need of the other; the benignant village padre and his almost puritanic sister; the loves of Alejandra and Jorge; and the family of strolling players, poor and despised, but happy in virtue, — make a story full of refined sentiment in the midst of the most sensational and forbidding realism. One is introduced to the intimate habits of the people; to the hospitality which makes every house an inn for the stranger; to the charity which adopts the orphan, comforts the unfortunate, and looks upon the idiot as "beloved of God." But there is at the same time an awful picture of corrupt law, distorted justice, and