Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/63

by gilding and color, and shaded by linen awnings, make a feature in themselves. Here on Sunday and fête day, as well as toward evening, the youth of the city gathers, in the full dress of private life; and the stolen glances, which form the only intercourse allowed between the sexes, flash back and forward between youth and maiden. Even deprived of the opportunity for interchange of vows, for hand-clasping, and tender greeting, it is self-evident that a young Mejicana, true to the traditions of her Castilian forebears, can make as much havoc with her languishing dark eyes, and the softly fluttering fan which supplements them, as any other girl arrayed in the full rational outfit of courtship. This is true, of course, only when she, as she always should be, but less frequently is, happens to be beautiful. The pretty girls are exquisite: the slender oval of the face, the rich olive of the cheek, the long, sweeping dark lashes over superb eyes glowing at once with passion and tenderness, the low forehead with its rippling mass of dusky hair, the slender neck, the lithe form, the springing step, and the dainty foot, make them like a poet's dream of darkly brilliant loveliness, not to be measured by any type with