Dolores was brought up as follows: At five she rose, and went, with Jacinta, to early mass--nearly always to a different church, as is the seemly custom in Carácas, lest young men should take advantage of it and take position behind the chairs of their adored ones in church, where they could not be repelled; for, of course, no young gentleman, however madly in love, would insult his lady by accosting her in the open street. After mass, at six, being the time of sunrise and by comparison safe, Jacinta would take her charge for a walk, usually on the Calvareo, then deserted. At seven they would be home, and then in the great court-yard, under the palms and rose-red orchids, Dolores would take her lessons--French, English, music--all from priests. At eleven, bath; at twelve, breakfast; then reading, perhaps a siesta in a hammock made of birds’ plumage. So she passed her days, all in the half-light of the great court-yard; only toward sunset again would she see the open sky, driving with one of her two governesses in the state carriage down the broad valley to where the wheel road stopped, and back again; or more rarely, as on this night, venturing on another walk. And all the youth of Carácas would gaze after her carriage; the young men driving out too, by themselves, in carriages, who had passed their days more in gambling or cock-fighting than with books and music; never, indeed, at mass. For here the lords of creation vent their authority in ordaining their wives and sisters to the Church and goodness, themselves to evil. But the most hardened duellist among them could no more than look at Dolores; only her reckless cousin Ramon would venture to ride athwart her carriage, and presume upon his cousinship to bow. Yet intercourse is possible always betwixt young people who seek each other out; and all Carácas gave Ramon to her for her suitor. And to-night even, as he stood and glowered at the Archbishop from behind the tree-ferns, he had another chance. For there is, and was, one more strange custom in this strange city; at the sunset hour the young ladies of Carácas, all in their gayest dresses, sit in the great open windows and look upon the street--a curious sight it is to see the bright eyes and white throats thrust, like birds from a cage, through the iron bars of the sombre stone windows. (For no wind or cold ever needs a window of glass in that perpetual perfect weather; the high sun never makes a shutter needful in the narrow streets.) And there they sit, unoccupied; and the young men of the city, dressed also in their best, walk by as slowly, and look as lingeringly, as they dare; and perhaps, if the dark shadow of mamma or the dueña does not come out too quickly from the inner room, a few quick words are spoken, and a flower left or given. And what says the old proverb of the Caraqueños? “_Better two words in secret than a thousand openly._”