Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/287

mines a month, and returned to Santos yesterday; so I conclude he will be up here in a few days. It is our fifth wedding day on the 22nd. Here every one wants to let his own especial dog-hole to us, so it is very hard to get settled. The house is a nice, large, roomy one, with good views. Kier and I and Chico, with the assistance of a friend's servant, are painting, whitewashing, and papering it ourselves. Only fancy, the Brazilians are dreadfully shocked at me for working! They never do anything but live in rags, filth, and discomfort at the back of their houses, and have one show-room and one show-dress for strangers, eat fejão (black beans), and pretend they are spending the deuce and all. The eighth deadly sin here is to be poor, or worse, economical. They say I am economical, because I work myself. I said to one of the principal ladies yesterday: 'Yes, I am economical; but I spend all I have, and do not save; I pay my debts, and make my husband comfortable; and we are always well fed and well dressed, and clean at both ends of our house. That's English way!' So she shut up."

"São Paulo, March 9, 1866.

"I got the same crying fit about you, dear mother, last week, as I did at Lisbon, starting up in the night and screaming out that you were dead; I find I do it whenever I am over-fatigued and weak. The chance of losing you is what weighs most on my mind, and it is therefore my nightmare when I am not strong; not but what when awake I am perfectly confident that we shall meet again before another year is out.