DEAR MAMA,--Well, we are really going to return! As usual, I have no more
clothes, and I certainly will not be bothered to have anything made here.
My black tulle dress has become brown and gray in its efforts to keep up
to the mark; and as for Laura's white lace, it has become gray and brown,
so you see we must go home.
We went to Lola's card-party. There was the bereaved brother, looking very
chirpy, and the Dean, and the Abbé. They kindly proposed to teach me their
favorite game of _tresillo_. They took a lively interest in my ignorance.
They told me the rules and the names of the extraordinary cards; for
instance, hearts were represented by coins, for clubs there were clubs,
while trees and swords served for diamonds and spades. Every card is
something else than what you have called it before. The value of each is
changed according to the trump. What you have considered always as a low
card, such as the two of spades, suddenly becomes the best card in the
pack.
All the cards have Spanish names--Spadilla, Manilla, Basta, Ponto, and
Matadores--which sound very romantic. A simple seven of hearts becomes
suddenly top card and is called Manilla, which is the second best when
hearts are trumps, and then the two of clubs, which was miles high the
last hand, is at the tail of all the other cards now. It is a dreadful
game. I thought that I should have brain fever while learning it. They
went on playing it for hours; there never seemed any end to it; they
counted in the weirdest way, making ciphers and tit-tat-toes on the green
baize table with chalk, and wiped out with a little brush. Every trick of
the adversary was deducted, and all the heads met over the chalk-marks to
find out mistakes.