The ladies of the aristocracy are in youth usually pretty, and at whatever age are always proud. For some reason or other they consider their country far above and beyond criticism, and themselves superior to the rest of Adam’s race. Ancestral pride is so conspicuous as to be ofttimes offensive, and the fact that a person born out of Nicaragua seems to them to have been a misfortune for which no other circumstances can compensate. This is true among both sexes of the upper caste, but more especially among the ladies, whose exalted opinion of their own importance in the universe has never been tarnished by travel. This feeling has gone far to excite the existing prejudice against foreigners, and while the tourists are always most hospitably received, the fact that their stay is only temporary adds to the pleasure of entertaining them. The most rigid restrictions prevent the social intercourse of the sexes, and nowhere in the world is a woman’s honor protected with such great precaution; and for excellent reasons. No lady of caste would think of receiving a call from a gentleman alone, except a priest; and the clergy make the most of their privileges, according to common report. [Illustration: ANTICS ON THE BRIDGE.] The ladies are always idle. To do any sort of work other than embroidery is beneath them, and the number of servants they employ is regulated not by their necessities but by their means. They are all uneducated, the privilege of a few years in a convent only being allowed them; and those are spent in learning the lives of the saints, a little embroidery, to drum on the piano, and to dance. There is no distinctive national costume. The aristocracy imitate the Parisian fashions, while the common masses wear whatever they can get. The Nicaraguans are much more social in disposition than the citizens of the other Central American countries. They have _tertulias_, which is a near relation of a “high tea,” and balls more frequently, and are much more given to dinner-parties, at which one of the greatest of imported luxuries is codfish.