After the meal we went outside. Fires had been built on opposite sides of the hard beaten earth in front of the house. Four men with guitars sat chair tilted, backed against the veranda. Thirty or forty people wandered to and fro. They were of the usual native class; our host's family, and one other, consisting of parents and three grown children, seemed to represent all the aristocracy. These better-class guests came to join us on the veranda. The older people did not greatly differ from our host and his wife, except in cut of masculine whisker, or amount of feminine fat. The younger members consisted of a young lady, tall and graceful, a young girl in white, and a man of twenty or thereabout. He was most gaudily gotten up, for a male creature, in a soft white shirt, a short braided jacket of blue, a wide, red-tasselled sash, and trousers slit from the knees down. The entire costume was sewn at all places, likely and unlikely, with silver buttons. As he was a darkly handsome chap, with a small moustache, red lips and a little flash of teeth, the effect was quite good, but I couldn't care for his style. The bulk of the villagers were dressed in white. The women all carried the _rebosa_, and were thickly powdered. We could see a number of the Americans in the background. The musicians struck up a strummy, decided sort of marchlike tune; and the dancers paired off. They performed a kind of lancer figure, very stately and solemn, seemingly interminable, with scant variation, small progressions, and mighty little interest to me. We sat in a stiff row and shed the compliment of our presence on the scene. It was about as inspiring as a visit to a hospital ward. What determined the duration of the affair, I cannot tell you; whether the musicians' fingers gave out, or the dancers' legs, or the official audience's patience. But at last they ceased. At the beginning of another tune, of much the same solemn character, our young visitor bowed ceremoniously to our host's daughter, and led her down the steps. "Come on, Johnny, be a sport. Dance this one," said Talbot rising. "Don't know how," replied Johnny gloomily, his eyes on the receding figure of Mercedes. "The lady'll show you. Come along!" Talbot bowed gravely to the young girl, who arose enchanted. Johnny, with his natural grace and courtesy, offered his arm to the other. She took it with a faintly aloof and indifferent smile, and descended the step with him. She did not look toward him, nor did she vouchsafe him a word. Plainly, she was not interested, but stood idly flirting with her fan, her eyes fixed upon the distance. The dance began. It was another of the same general character as the first. The couples advanced and retreated, swung slowly about each other, ducked and passed beneath each other's arms, all to the stately strumming of the guitars. They kept on doing these things. Johnny and Talbot soon got hold of the sequence of events, and did them too.