Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

UNOFFICIAL LETTERS OF

forward, unadorned sentiments of the Americans
contrasted sharply with the elegant phrases that fall
so easily from the tongue accustomed to the Spanish
language.
During the hot hours of the afternoon the
younger guests danced with marvelous energy. In
the company were two pretty Spanish mestizas in
European dress, who came in yellow slippers two
sizes too small for their feet. These sefioritas
danced unceasingly, although their faces were distorted with pain, and between dances they slipped
off the little yellow shoes and moaned " It hurts!
It hurts! " in their soft Spanish accent. The
younger one burst into tears after an unusually long
waltz, but with the fortitude of American Indians
they returned to the torture every time the band
began to play.
I was so overcome with the heat, dinner, and this
spectacle that I retired to a big bedroom containing
four large Filipino beds, hoping to rest, but it
proved to be the dressing room, where the ladies
came to plaster their perspiring faces with white
chalk, and where the Spanish maidens came to
weep over their yellow shoes, so, although I " saw
life," I did not rest.
After our attempted siesta we returned to the
scene of festivities, but found the sala deserted, and
the company eating cakes and drinking chocolate in
the dining room. In the cooler hours we walked
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