At length the swollen torrent rolled roaring down the narrow valley, filling the whole water-course, about fifty yards wide, and advancing with a solid front a fathom high--a fathom deep does not convey the idea like a stream of lava, or as one may conceive of the Red Sea, when, at the stretching forth of the hand of the prophet of the Lord, its mighty waters rolled back and stood heaped up as a wall to the host of Israel. The channel of the stream, which but a minute before I could have leaped across, was the next instant filled, and utterly impassable. “You can’t possibly move,” said Don Picador; “you can neither go on nor retreat; you must stay until the river subsides.” And the rain now began pattering in large drops, like scattering shots preceding an engagement, on the wooden shingles with which the house was roofed, gradually increasing to a loud rushing noise, which, as the rooms were not ceiled, prevented a word being heard. Don Ricardo began to fret and fidget most awfully,--“Beginning of the seasons--why, we may not get away for a week and all the ships will be kept back in their loading.” All this time, the poor sufferer’s tearing cough was heard in the lulls of the rain; but it gradually became less and less severe, and the lady of the house, and Senora Campana, and Don Picador’s daughter, at length slid into the room on tiptoe, leaving one of Don Ricardo’s nieces in the room with the sick person. “She is asleep--hush.” The weather continued as bad as ever, and we passed a very comfortless forenoon of it, Picador, Campana, Bang, and myself, perambulating the large dark hall, while the ladies were clustered together in a corner with their work. At length the weather cleared, and I could get a glimpse of mine hostess and her fair daughter. The former was a very handsome woman, about forty; she was tall, and finely formed; her ample figure set off by the very simple, yet, to my taste, very elegant dress formerly described: it was neither more nor less than the plain black silk petticoat over a chemise, made full at the bosom, with a great quantity of lace frills; her dark glossy hair was gathered on the crown of her head in one long braid, twisted round and round, and rising up like a small turret. Over all she wore a loose shawl of yellow silk crape. But the daughter, I never shall forget her! Tall and full, and magnificently shaped--every motion was instinct with grace. Her beautiful black hair hung a yard down her back, long and glossy, in three distinct braids, while it was shaded, Madonna-like, off her high and commanding forehead; her eyebrows--to use little Reefy’s simile--looked as if cut out of a mouse’s skin; and her eyes themselves, large, dark, and soft, yet brilliant and sparkling at the same time, however contradictory this may, read; her nose was straight, and her cheeks firm and oval, and her mouth, her full lips, her ivory teeth, her neck and bosom, were perfect, the latter if any