"Ay, in her whose miniature you wear under the fold of your shoulder-belt: I saw it for an instant the other day at Albuquerque. Nay, nay, man, you need not colour or look so cross; I shall not tell any of our fellows, and we have no mess here to try your fiery temper by jokes and quizzing. But keep it in a more secure place; should it be seen by Grant or Bevan, or any of them, it may become the source of continual jesting." "Those who dare to jest with me on such a subject, may find it dangerous work," said Ronald coldly and haughtily. "But here is the place we have been looking for,—the _Caza de Vino_." A bunch of gilded grapes, suspended over the door of a low flat-roofed building, announced it to be the shop of a retailer of wine. The door-way was crowded by British, Portuguese, and German officers, who were pressing their way in and out, intermixed with a few cigar-smoking citizens, wearing broad sombreros and the eternal long Spanish cloak, enveloping their whole form in a manner not ungraceful, but in the style of mysterious gentry on the stage, rendering it impossible to discover their rank in society; in fact, all the Spaniards they beheld were exactly like one another. All smoked cigars with the same air of immovable gravity; all wore the same sombre attire, and strode under the piazzas of the Plaza with the same haughty swagger. To stroll about smoking by day, and to sit listlessly at night muffled in their mantles, with their feet resting on a pan of hot charcoal while they sipped their sour wine, appeared to be their only employment. Ronald and his friend made their way into a spacious oblong apartment, fitted up in the plainest manner with rough deal seats and tables, at which sat many of the officers of the second division,—the red, or rather purple coats of the British, the blue of the Portuguese, the green of the German Rifles, and the brown of a few Spaniards, being intermingled. Several olive-cheeked young girls, with their long black hair streaming unbound, wearing short petticoats, large bustles, and high-heeled shoes, were continually tripping about, and serving the country wine in all kinds of vessels, from which it was rapidly transferred to the throats of the thirsty carousers; and a strange din of several languages and many sonorous voices, shook the rafters of the place. "A devil of a den this! Let us quit it as soon as possible," said Macdonald, draining his horn of dark liquor. "As soon as you please. I am almost stifled with the fumes of garlick from the Portuguese, and tobacco from the Germans. Look at old Blacier of the 60th Rifles, how quietly he sits in that corner, filling the whole place with the smoke of his long pipe." "Looking as grave as his Serene mightiness of Hesse Humbug. But I do not see any of ours here?"