that she had never seen anything to equal it. It is not the slavishness
of inferiors, for the poorest exhibit it towards each other. You see
two very old women talking eagerly in the street, each in a cloak whose
every square inch is a patch, and every patch a different shade,--and
each alternate word you hear seems to be _Senhora_. Among laboring men,
the most available medium of courtesy is the little paper cigar; it
contains about four whiffs, and is smoked by about that number of
separate persons.

But to fully appreciate this natural courtesy, one must visit the
humbler Fayalese at home. You enter a low stone hut, thatched and
windowless, and you find the mistress within, a robust, black-eyed,
dark-skinned woman, engaged in grinding corn with a Scriptural handmill.
She bars your way with apologies; you must not enter so poor a house;
you are so beautiful, so perfect, and she is so poor, she has "nothing
but the day and the night," or some equally poetic phrase. But you enter
and talk with her a little, and she readily shows you all her little
possessions,--her chest on the earthen floor, her one chair and stool,
her tallow-candle stuck against the wall, her husk mattress rolled
together, with the precious blue cloak inside of it. Behind a curtain
of coarse straw-work is a sort of small boudoir, holding things more
private, an old barrel with the winter's fuel in it, a few ears of corn
hanging against the wall, a pair of shoes, and a shelf with a large
pasteboard box. The box she opens triumphantly and exhibits her
_santinhos_, or little images of saints. This is San Antonio, and this
is Nossa Senhora do Conceiçao, Our Lady of the Conception. She prays to
them every day for sunshine; but they do not seem to hear, this
winter, and it rains all the time. Then, approaching the climax of her
blessedness, with beaming face she opens a door in the wall, and shows
you her pig.