candles made by the hand, some attempt at baking bread, which always resulted in failure, and a thousand rural operations, which it would be superfluous to enumerate. Such varied occupations were not without method, beginning in the morning with feeding the goslings, gathering the vegetables before they were wilted by the sun, and then establishing herself at her loom, which for long years was her chief occupation. I have in my possession the shuttle of algarroba, polished and blackened by years, which she had inherited from her mother, who received it from her grandmother, a humble relic of colonial life, embracing a period of about two hundred years, during which noble hands had thrown it almost unweariedly; and although one of my sisters has inherited from my mother the habit and the necessity of weaving, my covetousness has prevailed, and I am still the depository of this family jewel. It is a pity that I can never be rich and powerful enough to imitate that Persian king who continued to use the clay pottery which had served him in childhood, in order that he might not grow proud and despise poverty.
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"Such was the domestic hearth near which I grew, and it is impossible that there should not be left, on a loyal nature, indelible impressions of morality, of industry, and of virtue, received in that sublime school in which the most laborious industry, the purest morality, dignity maintained in the midst of poverty, constancy, and resignation, divided all the hours. My sisters enjoyed the deserved reputation of being the most diligent and efficient girls in the whole province, and whatever feminine occupation required consummate skill, was always commended to these supreme artificers who could do everything which required patience and dexterity and very little money."
To complete this picture the author brings into
