You greet your neighbor on the veranda with good-day in Portuguese; then she speaks more of the same tongue but you shake your head. “_Parlez-vous Français?_” but there again you are soon beyond your depth, and at length one is found who speaks “a lit-tle English.” You have noticed this young woman before, a modest, bright, intelligent-looking girl, with an expression just a little different from all the others, evasive but of a more familiar type. “Where did you learn English?” you inquire. “At the Eschola Americana (American School), in São Paulo,” she replies; and you tell her you are going to that city very soon and to visit that school. You have found a friend, though a shy one; Brazilian girls keep well in the background, and next day when a box of flowers, oranges and sugar-cane comes down from her father’s fazenda, she brings you some camelias and tells you about the sugar-cane, though neither of you cares to chew it. It is for children, and “children of a larger growth.” St. John’s Day comes at the end of June. It is one of the greatest of the many Romish holidays or _festas_. The “American schools”[4] do not close for saints’ days, indeed one is puzzled to think what other schools do with such constant interruptions and the overwhelming illiteracy is partially accounted for! They do close, however, for a ten days’ vacation at St. John’s Day, for it is midway from Christmas to Christmas and fits the school semesters. Dr. Lane, President of the “American schools” and college, and some of the teachers come down to Guaruja to rest, and you have many a quiet time to talk over their work with them, such as they could not well afford to give were they among their five hundred pupils. You enjoy seeing them meet old friends among these Brazilian families. You sit out on the veranda in the evening, while St. John is honored with fire-works (saints always have fire-works) and talk a little with the orphaned Scotch and Italian girls who have been brought to school and are being trained for teachers. They have all been under the weather. It has been forty-five degrees Fahrenheit up in São Paulo morning and evening for three weeks, a little too cold for a building with no heaters fiercer than little charcoal braziers, but the Brazilian children are accustomed to such winter temperatures, even though consumption has more victims than any other disease. [4] “American Schools” were founded many years ago by a Presbyterian missionary and have maintained a high standard. This is a holiday for business men as well as schools and the prevailing church.