at home your welcome will be cordial, and you will be asked to a seat upon the sofa, which is always reserved for guests, and is the place of honor. You will be entertained by him until the ladies appear one by one, for they always stop to dress. No Spanish-American lady is ever ready to receive a caller. The lady of the house and her daughters will chat with you about the opera and the bull-fight and the latest scandal, and will perform brilliantly upon the piano, but beyond that her powers of entertainment do not go. If you can get Señorita Dolores over in the corner--and she will be delighted with a _tête-à-tête_--you will find that she knows nothing whatever about the world beyond her own limited circle of acquaintance. She has not the vaguest idea of the United States, and does not know whether Paris is in America, or New York in England. She will look at you with her great eyes with the most childish innocence, and ask if the bullfights in New York are as exciting as those of Lima, and if there is as agile a picador in the States as Señor Rubio. When you tell her that bull-fighting is not recognized as a legitimate amusement in New York, she will exclaim “Santa Maria!” and ask what entertainment you have when the opera-house is closed. Then, when you say that eight or ten theatres are always open, she will cry out to papa across the room to take her to New York by the next steamer. The señorita got her education at a convent, has learned to embroider, to play the piano, to dance, and has committed to memory the lives of the saints; and there her accomplishments end. She is so beautiful that you are sorry you explored her mind; you feel guilty of having exposed her ignorance; you wish that you could simply sit and look at her, a picture of loveliness, forever; but when you ask her to dance, and she moves away with you in a waltz or mazourka, you discover that however empty her head may be, the education of her feet has not been neglected. No one who has ever waltzed with a Peruvian girl will wish for another partner. She is simply animated gracefulness, and her endurance is remarkable. She clings a little closer than our girls would consider consistent with propriety, and dances with an abandon that would call out a remonstrance from a watchful mamma in the States. She gives her whole mind and soul to it, regardless of consequences, and sighs when the music ceases, as if there were nothing more in life to enjoy. [Illustration: A PERUVIAN MILK-PEDDLER.]