The Limeña in the street, shrouded in the saya y manto, differs as widely from the same Limeña at home, as the butterfly wrapped up in its chrysalis does from the same insect with wings fully expanded. At home, at the theatre, in the carriage, every where except when walking in the streets, or in church, the Limeña appears dressed in the newest French fashions. There is, however, one article of European costume which they uniformly refuse to adopt, and that is the bonnet. With here and there an exception, they obstinately reject any other head-dress than a light vail and their own abundant tresses. An inordinate fondness for flowers and perfumes is also a striking characteristic of a Limeña, whose presence is almost invariably announced by a vase of flowers and a flaçon of perfume, placed upon a table near which she reclines swinging in a hammock during the sultry hours of the day, amusing herself, now with examining a book of engravings, now with music, of which she is passionately fond, perhaps with embroidery--and not unfrequently with a cigar. [Illustration: CHOLITAS OR INDIAN WOMEN OF PERU.] If man or woman were only an animal being--and if she could always be young and physically charming--this life of the Limeña might not seem so undesirable. But with her a thing of beauty is not a joy forever. If her reign is brilliant, it is brief. When her beauty fades she ceases to be a coquette, and becomes a _beata_ or devotee. She renounces the vanities of the world, attends mass several times a day, makes frequent confessions, and takes up her abode during Lent in a house of penitence. She selects a confessor to whom she unburdens her conscience, and sends presents of sweetmeats and delicacies. At home she sinks into a cipher, scarcely more regarded than a piece of worn-out furniture. If a stranger, paying a visit to a young Limeña, respectfully rises to make a place for an aged woman who enters the _cuadro_, nothing is more common than for the daughter to say, with the utmost coolness, _No se incommoda usted, es ma mamita_ "Don't incommode yourself, it's my mamma." Habit becomes a second nature, and the Limeña accommodates herself to her lot without a murmur. Such, with exceptions few and rare, is the lot of the _hechiceras Limeñas_, so highly endowed by nature, and worthy of a better fate.