Well, he handed me the bank-note, saying: “This is to enable you to attend my wedding. They are selling cheap excursion tickets now, round-trip, do you understand? Yes, they are good for two months, or I don’t know how long, so that will be very convenient for you. Of course, you’ll travel second-class, for third-class is too uncomfortable. You can write at once to your mother what day you expect to start. The sooner the better, because you’ll not only get more pure country air, but you’ll save your board at the same time. Your mother is at Ullosa, and from there to Pontevedra and Tejo is only a step. Come a few days before the wedding. I don’t know as I told you; it will take place on the day of Our Lady of Carmen. There is room enough for everybody at Tejo. It is an old castle, which has been rebuilt and fixed up recently. You’ll not be in the way. Try to make your mother go also; I am afraid she is so queer that she’ll not do so.”
It was getting late in the afternoon, and the man at work at the matting had finished his task; so my uncle put the key in his pocket, and went out with me. We turned down the street, and got on a horse-car. When we came to the Puerta del Sol, instead of going toward the hotel, we took another car and proceeded toward Ancha de San Bernardo Street.
“Come with me,” said the Hebrew. “As it is now vacation time, a little recreation will not harm you. You’ll see some fine people.” Although I suspected what his “fine people” might be, I could not help feeling surprised when a very fine-looking girl opened the door for us. This handsome damsel had on a red calico wrapper, with pink flowers, low slippers, and wore her hair in that style of large bands pasted down over the ears which the women of the lower classes in Madrid have discarded at present for cork-screw curls.
I warmly admired her raven black hair, her beautiful form, her cheeks, where the fresh color struggled to show itself through a thick coating of rice-powder, which she had daubed on hurriedly. Her velvety eyes, bold, but sweet by reason of their fine lashes, fastened themselves upon mine, and said something to me, to which I immediately responded in the same mute language.
Behind this lovely specimen of the Madrid type appeared the head of a younger girl; not so good-looking, thin, mocking, and combed and powdered like her elder sister.