Just as the sun's rays were turning rose-coloured upon the snow-crowned
summit of Orizava, I was once more wending my way towards the Calle del
Obispo.
A third disappointment; but this time of a kind entirely different from
the other two.
I had hit the hour. The _doncella_--of whom for three days I had been
thinking--three nights dreaming--was in the window where I had first
seen her.
One glance and I was completely disenchanted!
Not that she could be called plain, or otherwise than pretty. She was
more than passably so, but still only _pretty_.
Where was the resplendent beauty that had so strangely, suddenly,
impressed me?
She might have deemed me ill-mannered, as I stood scanning her features
to discover it; for I was no longer in awe--such as I expected her
presence would have produced. I could now look upon her, without fear
of that possibly perilous future I had been picturing to myself.
After all, the thing was easy of explanation. For six weeks we had been
among the hills--in cantonment--so far from Jalapa, that it was only
upon rare occasions we had an opportunity of refreshing our eyes with a
sight of the fair Jalapenas. We had been accustomed to see only the
peasant girls of Banderilla and San Miguel Soldado, with here and there
along the route the coarse unkempt squaws of Azteca. Compared with
these, she of the Calle del Obispo was indeed an angel. It was the
contrast that had misled me?
Well, it would be a lesson of caution not to be too quick at falling in
love. I had often listened to the allegement, that circumstances have
much to do in producing the tender passion. This seemed to confirm it.
I was not without regret, on discovering that the angel of my
imagination was no more than a pretty woman,--a regret strengthened by
the remembrance of three distinct promenades made for the express
purpose of seeing her--to say nothing of the innumerable vagaries of
pleasant conjecture, all exerted in vain.