"Don't think that I'm a provincial or a soldier's _querida!_ In my house in Manila the alfereces don't eater, they wait at the door." "Oho, _Excelentisima Senora!_ Alfereces don't enter, but cripples do--like that one--ha, ha, ha!" Had it not been for the rouge, Dona Victorian would have been seen to blush.

She tried to get to her antagonist, but the sentinel stopped her.

In the meantime the street was filling up with a curious crowd.
"Listen, I lower myself talking to you--people of quality--Don't you want to wash my clothes?
I'll pay you well! Do you think that I don't know that you were a washerwoman_ ?_" Dona Consolacion straightened up furiously; the remark about washing hurt her.

"Do you think that we don't know who you are and what class of people you belong with?
Get out, my husband has already told me! Senora, I at least have never belonged to more than one, but you?
One must be dying of hunger to take the leavings, the mop of the whole world!" This shot found its mark with Dona Victorina.

She rolled up her sleeves, clenched her fists, and gritted her teeth.