Occasionally they met a lady dressed in white, with bare head and fan in hand, who had driven down in her volante to fetch a father or a husband from his place of business.

This vehicle struck Lee as being very odd.  It was a sort of large, open gig, mounted on very high wheels and drawn by a horse at the end of very long shafts, which kept him several feet from the volante.

The horse was always ridden by a black postillion in gorgeous livery, glazed hat and cockade, and enormous boots, who cracked a whip with a noise like pistol-shots, to show that an important person was coming.

A number of times Lee stopped to look at the novel sights about him, but at last Diego said: 

“Come on now, Lee.  We’re still some ways from my Aunt Dolores, and she always goes to bed with the chickens.”

Trudging on, over the rough, slippery stones, they at last turned up a side street of poor habitations, most of them in sad want of soap and water, as well as paint and whitewash, and about half-way up the block came to an open door, at which sat a chocolate-colored, withered old woman, who was smoking a very long, thin cigar.

Diego stepped up to her and said, in Spanish: 

“Dear aunt, do you not know me?”

The old woman stared at him a moment with her dim eyes, as she took the cigar from her mouth, and then she jumped up and exclaimed, in the same language: 

“It is Diego! my Diego!”

And with that she flung her arms about him, hugged and kissed him, and talked at such a rate that all the neighbors came to see what had happened.  At last Diego got clear of her, and turned to Lee, saying: 

“She says they heard that I had gone off to the ends of the earth with a confounded Gringo Yankee, and I was gone so long she thought I must be dead.”

Then he turned to the old woman and continued: 

“Here is a Yankee friend of mine, who is a good fellow.  We have had hard times, and I want you to let us sleep here to-night, and to-morrow we will look for something to do.  We have had enough to eat for to-day, and so we only want shelter.”

Old Dolores, Diego’s aunt, was a washerwoman.  She employed one or two girls during the day, but they had now gone home, and she was alone in the house; so she took the lads in and spread some sheets on ironing-tables in a back room, which opened upon a little court, with high stone walls, and there they lay down, and in spite of the numerous curious smells, and of the hardness of their beds, were soon asleep.

CHAPTER VIII.

Next morning the old woman had them up early, for she wanted to use their beds, and gave them some breakfast, consisting of very good coffee, without milk, fried plantains, very nice white bread from the baker’s next door, and to each a little relish of salt bacon, which did instead of butter.