It did not hinder me from being early abroad on the morning after. I saw the rose-tints upon the “White Sister,” as Phoebus imprinted his first kiss upon her snowy brow. I saw this as I entered the Calle del Obispo—the magnificent mountain appearing like a white wall stretched across at the termination of the street!
You will scarce ask why I was there? Only, why at such an early hour?
I could but gaze at the house—trace the frescoes on its façade—feast my eyes upon inanimate objects; or, if animate, only nest-building birds, or domestics of the mansion.
You are thinking of Park-lane—not Puebla, where the angels rise early. In Park-lane they sleep till a late hour, having “retired” at a late hour. In Puebla they are up with the sun, having gone to bed with the same.
The explanation is easy. Puebla is Catholic—a city of orisons. Park-lane is Protestant, and more given to midnight revels!
Had I not known the peculiarity of Mexican customs in this respect, I should not have been traversing the “Street of the Bishop” before seven o’clock in the morning.
But I did know them; and that the lady who, at that hour, or before it, is not on her way to church—capilla, parroquia, or cathedral—is either too old to take an interest in the confessional, or too humble to care for the Church at all!
Few there are of this sort in the City of the Angels. It was not likely that Mercedes Villa-Señor would be among the number. Her sister, Dolores, had let me into a secret—without knowing, or intending it.
In Mexico there are two twilights—equally interesting to those who make love by stealth. One precedes the rising, the other follows the setting, of the sun.
It seems like reversing the order of nature to say that the former is more favourable to the culte of the god Cupid—but in Mexico it is even so. While the Belgravian beauty lies asleep on her soft couch, dreaming of fresh conquests, the fair Poblana is abroad upon the streets, or kneeling before the shrine of the Virgin—in the act of making them!