On Sunday mornings a young carabao was killed. The meat hacked off with little reference to anatomy was hung up in the public stall among the swarms of flies. Old women came and handled every piece, and haggled a good deal about the price. Each finally selected one, and swinging it from a short piece of cane, carried it home in triumph. Morning mass was held at the big _simbahan_, where the doleful music of the band suggested lost souls wailing on the borders of Cocytus or the Stygian creek. Young _caballeros_ dressed in white, the _concijales_ with their silver-headed canes and baggy trousers, and the "_taos_" in diaphanous and flimsy shirts that they had not yet learned to tuck inside, stood by to watch the _señoritas_ on their way to church. The girls walked rather stiffly in their tight shoes; but as soon as mass was over, shoes and stockings came off, and the villagers relaxed into the bliss of informality. I learned, when I last went to _La Aurora_, that Felicidad was going to be married; that the banns had been announced last Sunday in the church. The groom to be, Benito,--or Bonito as we called him on account of his good looks,--had recently returned from college in Cebu, bringing a string of fighting cocks, a _fonografo_, and a piebald racing pony. "When he sent me the white ribbon," said Felicidad, "I was surprised, but mamma said that I was old enough to marry him--I was fourteen--and that the matter had been all arranged. And so I wore the ribbon in my hair, and also wrote my name _Felicidad_ beneath his on the card that he had sent. And after that, when we went walking, the _dueña_ was unnecessary." She confessed naïvely to a serenade under her balcony, of which I seem to have retained a hazy memory. And so the usual pig and goat were roasted, and the neighbors' boys came in to help. The bride, with orange-blossoms in her hair, the daintiest kid slippers on her feet, and dressed in a white mist of _piña_, rode away in the new pony cart, the only one in town. The groom was dressed in baggy trousers, with a pink shirt and an azure tie. Most of the presents came from _Chino_ Santiago's store; but the best one was a beautiful piano from Cebu. After the service in the church, a feast was held upstairs in the bride's house. Ramon, the justice of the peace, the padre, _Maestro_ Pepin, all the _concijales_, and the _presidente_ were invited, and the groom owned up that he had spent his last cent on the refreshments that were passed around. It is the custom in the poorer families for the prospective groom to bond himself out for a certain length of time to the bride's father, or even to purchase her with articles of merchandise. A combination of commercial interests was the result, however, of the marriage of Bonito and Felicidad. Chapter IX. The "Brownies" of the Philippines.