Married, she seems to resign herself contentedly to a purely domestic life; one enters homes in Brazil whose handsome hostess entertains delightfully, always exquisitely dressed, and sparkling with the big diamonds that are considered the simple right of every woman in Brazil— my washerwoman in Rio had a pair of brilliant earrings that cost three contos of reis, representing her life’s savings—but this same smiling hostess will never be seen outside her spacious home and gardens, except upon the formal occasions when she is obliged to make an appearance in public with her husband. She not infrequently displays a tendency to _embonpoint_ early in life, the result of lack of exertion and the eating of the extraordinary and delicious _doces_ (sweets and candies), the creation of which is a special art of Brazilian women, but she does not mind this at all, fearing a thin figure as the most terrible of disasters in this land where the highest compliment paid to a woman is: “How pretty and fat you are getting!” _Gorda_ and _bonita_ are indeed interchangeable terms. She accepts her destiny as a mother of many children, and generally spoils them badly, at least in their infancy; the father is equally indulgent. A harsh parent is a _rara avis_, and nothing excites popular indignation in Brazil more than any story of hardship in which children are concerned. Passionately devoted to her babies, the Brazilian mother stays within her home, is the gracious sovereign of her circle, and seems little disturbed when it expands notably. This expansion is likely to happen if any relative either on her side or her husband’s falls upon evil days; in that case he will come with his family and camp out until fortune smiles again. There is no turning of the cold shoulder upon poor relations in Brazil—they are welcome to a share of the family fare, and to hammock space if beds are lacking in the case of poorer homes, secure in the knowledge that they in turn will repay this good deed with similar ones later on. The city centres have of course their more rigid social laws, but in the less restricted life of smaller towns or _fazendas_ there is often encountered another variation from the harsher rules of some other lands: this is the placid acceptance into a home of children who do not claim the mistress of the house as mother, but who receive from her bed and board and a status little inferior to that of her own babies, regular members of society. Lapses from social law occur all over the world; they are punished to a greater or lesser degree everywhere, but in some countries the innocent suffer more than the guilty; unhappy and unwanted children bear a stigma against which they rebel in vain. Brazilian opinion does not spare offenders, but it does withhold any harsh hand from innocent children. Acknowledged and treated with affection, they are given a chance in life together with the more fortunate.