Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/301

CH. XIX.] as a lady of rank, and occupied a distinguished place amongst the guests: her domestic situation seemed, nevertheless, to occupy her thoughts, and she recounted to me the little projects which her husband and herself were planning for increasing their income: the principal of these was the cultivation of cochineal: with a capital of about 3000 dollars they had already planted 2000 nopals, which were to produce, after the first year, provided they did not meet with a bad season, an annual return, every year after, of the whole of their outlay. I sincerely wished her success in the operation, and have been glad to find, by inquiries which I afterwards made, that she was not much too sanguine in her calculations. Opposite to us sat a rich old Spaniard, who might have been about sixty-five years of age, and had just married, for his third wife, a girl of seventeen, who was amusing herself with the younger gallants at the bottom of the table: he had been very diligent at dinner in