Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/120

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100
OFFICIAL VISIT
[CH. VII.

pering in the apartment: it was a female voice in conversation on some subject of a deep and apparently highly interesting nature. As there were no glazed windows, the shutters of the room were all closed, excepting a small pannel which was cut in one of them, and which admitted a feeble ray of moonlight. By these means, I was enabled to distinguish two figures, and soon found that the persons in question were Don Simon and the eldest daughter. "I cannot," said the female voice, "without my mother's consent; and if I did, my sister Guadalupe would be so jealous, that I should never have a moment's peace." He answered, that she was foolish to think either of her mother or her sister in the business; that she had nothing to do but to consult her own choice; she had already declared it, and abide by it she must. Thus saying, he walked off, whistling as he came to my end of the apartment, and throwing back an "A Dios" to the "buenas noches," uttered in the tender agitated voice of the