Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/273

Rh the Other peregrinations with which you are well acquainted, without reckoning, once a week at least, a day fixed by one of her companions for an excursion to a garden or plantation in the vicinity. Not an ecclesiastic takes the religious habit, nor a nun, nor a monk even, the vows, but she is the first to hasten to the ceremony. At the festivals of the Blessed Virgin, and the masses of the new year, her devotion is incredible: she scarcely sleeps on those days, that she may not lose any of these holy assemblies. But what deprives me of all patience is this, that in the midst of these rambles, and not satisfied with them, she never absents herself from a public execution. She knows to a minute when a capital punishment is to be inflicted on one; when another is to be whipped; and on these mornings she rises early, makes a hasty breakfast, and we set out for the square. I have not yet done. When one of the lottery clerks passes by the house, during the few hours she is within doors, she calls him in, and after a long chit-chat about the chances past, present, and to come, stakes on four numbers at the least, which, with as many smaller adventures, amount to eight piastres per month:—"pay them, my soul," she repeats, addressing herself to me; "I have not any loose cash about me!" One day, to my great misfortune, she had a hit; but such was the concourse of female visitants' and their attendants, to partake of the treat, and so many the presents distributed on the occasion, that I may say proverbially, the tart cost me a loaf, or, in other words, I was obliged to make considerable disbursements, the hundred and twenty-five piastres gained by our fortunate adventure not sufficing to defray the expences. These things torment me not a little; but who is capable of resisting a lady? As