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306 she was receiving the forfeits, in the midst of murmurs of applause excited by the prodigality of the two Jarochos, and which she could not refuse without being guilty of rudeness, her two little outstretched hands trembled involuntarily, and her pale lips tried, but in vain, to smile. Calros fruitlessly sought a look of encouragement from her. Pale and mute, and evidently laboring under an emotion too powerful for concealment, she kept her eyes fixed upon the ground. The machete would decide the question; and the pleasures of the fête were going to be wound up by my host in spite of his sage resolutions, when an old woman, elbowing her way through the crowd, reminded him of the oath he was about to violate. She was the mother of his dead relative.

"It is a shame, ñor Don Calros," cried the beldame, "to take a new quarrel upon you when your cousin's death has not yet been avenged."

The Jarocho was evidently taken aback at this unseasonable interruption, and he made all the efforts he could to induce the old woman to retract what she had said, but to all his reasons she had one unvarying reply.

"Well, ña Josefita," said Calros at last, good-humoredly, "you are making a great work about nothing, and are mistrusting my good intention; for, if I fight this man, am I not keeping my hand in exercise?"

"And should you happen to be run through the body, who will then avenge my son?"

"You are right there," replied Calros, thrown off his guard by this argument; "but that's just the way: the women are always mixing themselves up in business that does not concern them. Any one may now