Mayne Reid - The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley

Soon as glanced over, she let the despised thing fall, almost flinging it at her feet; and once more bent her eyes upon the Tacubaya Road, first carrying her glance along the side of the aqueduct to assure herself that her messenger had not in the meanwhile rounded the corner.

He had not, and she continued to watch impatiently; the invitation to ride in the State carriage being as much out of her mind as though she had never received it.

Not many minutes longer before being intruded on. This time, however, by no domestic; instead a lady – like herself, young and beautiful, but beauty of an altogether different style. Though of pure Spanish descent, Luisa Valverde was a güera ; her complexion bright, with hair of sunny hue. Such there are in Mexico, tracing their ancestry to the shores of Biscay’s famous bay.

She who now appeared upon the azotea was dark; her skin showing a tinge of golden brown, with a profusion of black hair plaited and coiled as a coronet around her head. A crayon-like shading showed upon her upper lip – which on that of a man would have been termed a moustache – rendering whiter by contrast teeth already of dazzling whiteness; while for the same reason, the red upon her cheeks was of the deep tint of a damask rose. The tones of all, however, were in perfect harmony; and distributed over features of the finest mould produced a face in which soft feminine beauty vied with a sort of savage picturesqueness, making it piquantly attractive.

It was altogether a rare bewitching face; part of its witchery being due to the raza Andalusiana – and beyond that the Moriscan – but as much of it coming from the ancient blood of Anahuac – possibly from the famed Malinche herself. For the young lady delineated was the Condes Almonté – descended from one of Conquistadors who had wedded an Aztec princess – the beautiful Ysabel Almonté whose charms were at the time the toast of every cercle in Mexico.

Luisa Valverde and Ysabel Almonté were fast friends – so fondly intimate that scarcely a day passed without their seeing one another and exchanging confidences. They lived in the same street; the Condesa having a house of her own, though nominally owned by her grand-aunt and guardian. For, besides being beautiful and possessed of a title – one of the few still found in Mexico, relics of the old régime – Ysabel Almonté was immensely rich; had houses in the city, haciendas

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