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THE GOYA SQUIRE.

from morning till night; ever and anon Campbell, with half a dozen of his followers or friends, was to be seen galloping up to my door, where were assembled all classes of traffickers, traders, and employés, dispatching by turns their various business with me connected with the winding up. In short, a busy and animated scene was constantly going forward in the generally quiet port of Goya.

About the middle of September, my brother having closed or made over to Mr. Postlethwaite all his Corrientes affairs, and having put on board the San José what produce he had there, shipped his own person in that vessel, and joined me at Goya, on his way to Buenos Ayres.

While we were thus together engaged in bringing all to a close, and anxiously looking forward to the day which was to see us fairly under way for the River Plate, an incident arose which threatened rather serious consequences, and which was on the whole of so singular a nature, as to deserve the somewhat ample recital which I now propose to give you of it.

When I first introduced our readers to the society of Goya, I mentioned that it boasted of two estancieros, or South American squires, and their families.

DAUGHTERS OF THE GOYA SQUIRE.

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Their estates lying more conveniently for the port than for the capital, they fixed upon the former as the proper place for their town residence.

One of these squires had a nice family: a buxom wife, two or three hobble-de-hoy sons, and three or four daughters, the two oldest grown up, and the prettiest girls of Goya. The father indulged them, and allowed them much of their own way; the mother was proud of them, told them to hold up their heads with the best in Goya, and dressed them out and showed them off to the greatest advantage.

With respect to the name of this squire, our fashionable London readers will doubtless smile when I say that I hesitate to give the real appellation of the family in question. But as I do not doubt the offshoots of the estanciero have flourished apace, as his progeny, in all probability, move in the higher circles of the present day in Goya, they may not relish their names being brought forward in the present annals of the order and rise of their house. It is true we are here at a great distance from Goya; but what I now write may change its English garb, take a Spanish one, and "circulate" from the libraries of Goya, among all the fashionables of the place. Since our "Letters on Para

4

DAUGHTERS OF THE GOYA SQUIRE.

guay" are now performing this rotatory motion in the land of the Jesuits, it is no unfair inference to assume that these Letters on the River Plate may, ere long, circulate in Corrientes.

I shall call the country squire, therefore, Don Baltazar Gonzalez. Each of his two grown up daughters had her own peculiar style of beauty, but on the whole the oldest, Rosa, or, as she was called, Rosita, was generally esteemed the prettiest. She had large and laughing blue eyes, a very scarce, and therefore much admired, eye in South America; her features were not so regular in detail as they were agreeable in the toute ensemble; her lips were

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cherry ripe,”—her ever ready smile made her cheek a sort of freehold for her dimples; her colour exhibited a loving struggle between the rose and the lily for supremacy; her figure, if not petite, scarcely rose to the middle height, and with handsome proportions,-it was more plump than spare. Her feet, like those of many of the South American ladies, were small, and her ankle well turned; her step was elastic, her dancing perfection; and altogether she deserved to be, as she always was, pronounced to be a very fine girl.

I have begun by hastily delineating the external

appearance of the Goya belle, because that being the most obvious to view, is always the first and immediate object of attraction; but I should do great injustice to Doña Rosita were I not to add, that she was a lively, agreeable, and kind hearted girl; full of fun and glee, but possessed, for the more serious avocations of life, of warm affections, a good temper, and gentle disposition, which rendered her a general favourite in Goya.

It will not be doubted by my fair readers, nor by any other class of them, that Rosita had many beaux; indeed she ran a great risk of becoming one of those unfortunate beauties who have so many contending rivals as to end in a state of single blessedness. Everybody admired Rosita; but then everybody seeing that everybody admired her, nobody in particular appeared courageous enough to step forward and take a preeminent stand with the fair object of general competition; no one bold enough to disdain all other pretenders but himself, and manfully to lay claim to the prize and carry it off. Thus Rosita was forced, perhaps, into a general flirtation, which she did not like,— her heart was not satisfied, but her vanity was nurtured and kept alive by general admiration.

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THE YOUNG LOVER, DUVAL.

Among Rosa's "general" admirers, my brother was favourably recognized on one or two occasions that he visited Goya, and I myself, as a neighbour and "general" admirer of good specimens of the fair sex, used now and then to spend agreeably an evening with Don Baltazar and his family, including, of course, the pretty Rosita.

At last, however, two of the many frequenters of Don Baltazar's house settled down into declared and especial lovers. One was an agreeable young man, in business, not over rich, but prudent and likely to rise in the world. He dressed well, had the quiet and insinuating way of your South American lover, played the guitar, danced, and had I know not how many other qualities calculated to win Rosita's heart. The other was a man, verging towards sixty, but hale, tall, erect, plausible, and rich. He was uncle of the comandante, had an entire sway over that functionary, and possessed no small influence in the political affairs of the part in which he resided of Artigas's dominions. But he was jealous, overbearing, tyrannical, and, in particular, he had a Spaniard's dislike of foreigners and of foreign influence of every kind.

Rosita very naturally preferred her younger and