Don Tiburcio then saw a patch of blue sky and asked to be introduced to her.
Dona Victorina and Don Tiburcio met: _tarde venientibus ossa_, [118] he would have exclaimed had he known Latin! She was no longer passable, she was passee.

Her abundant hair had been reduced to a knot about the size of an onion, according to her maid, while her face was furrowed with wrinkles and her teeth were falling loose.

Her eyes, too, had suffered considerably, so that she squinted frequently in looking any distance.

Her disposition was the only part of her that remained intact.
At the end of a half-hour's conversation they understood and accepted each other.

She would have preferred a Spaniard who was less lame, less stuttering, less bald, less toothless, who slobbered less when he talked, and who had more "spirit" and "quality," as she used to say, but that class of Spaniards no longer came to seek her hand.